In a year of great pictures, great actors and great documentary short-ers, it’s time to pick the best of them all. And by pick the best of them, I mean watch the culmination of a months-long PR campaign fueled exclusively by production companies and cold hard cash.
But enough of the cynicism! This is Hollywood’s most exciting and most glamorous night of the year, and who would the Michigan Daily Film Beat be if not your guide to the red carpet’s greatest (ehhh) stars and movies?
—Senior Arts Editor Rami Mahdi and Film Beat Editor Alvin Anand
Best Picture
“Barbie?” “Killers of the Flower Moon?” “Poor Things?” This year’s Best Picture nominees are a treasure trove of great movies from popular and esteemed directors like Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Martin Scorsese (“Goodfellas”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”). But rising above the undeniable glow that surrounds many of the auteur-driven films nominated, the practically-worshiped Christopher Nolan (“Interstellar”) is expected to win the top award for his three-hour behemoth of a biopic, “Oppenheimer.”
Already possessing a widely respected and storied career, Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” will reap the benefits of consequential subject matter and commanding titular performance from Cillian Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”). His victory for the most coveted award is all but guaranteed.
However, although Nolan will certainly win, neither he nor any of the other established artists created the most emotionally resonant film of the year. That honor goes to Celine Song’s “Past Lives” — her directorial debut.
“Past Lives” stands above the other nominees by appealing directly to the heart. It is a simple movie with minimal plot — the opposite of “Oppenheimer” — anchored by two incredibly warm and sincere performances from Greta Lee (“The Morning Show”) and Teo Yoo (“Love to Hate You”). It may not be the most technically impressive or flamboyant of the nominees, but it captures the full spectrum of human emotion better than any of them, transcending its story to leave the audience with a complex gut punch of feelings that linger long after the credits roll.
WILL WIN: “Oppenheimer”
SHOULD WIN: “Past Lives”
Film Beat Editor Alvin Anand can be reached at alvinsa@umich.edu.
Best Director
As with nearly every other award this Oscar season, the conversation around who will win Best Director begins and ends with “Oppenheimer.” After not winning an award from a nomination five separate times, Christopher Nolan will not be denied any longer. The blockbusting money-making action-fueled ghost that’s been haunting the Academy Awards since 2001 will finally get his due.
That’s not to say it’s an easy win for Nolan; this is a stacked category, more so than it has been in recent years. Jonathan Glazer’s (“Under the Skin”) “The Zone of Interest” was a richly interesting exploration into anti-cinema. Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things” was exactly as wild and inventive as you’d expect from a Lanthimos-directed steampunk romp. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” might not be his last picture, but it certainly looks that way, filled with all the dread and despair that the story brings with it.
Yet of the competition against Nolan, only Justine Triet (“Sibyl”) feels like a truly worthy candidate. “Anatomy of a Fall” is a fully realized reinvention of the courtroom drama that refuses to be overwhelmingly auteur-swaddled. Triet’s camera is hands-on when it needs to be, yet silently takes a backseat when the script looks ready to take the wheel, coming in stark contrast to the deeply unsubtle directing of the other films in the category.
Despite how tremendous Triet’s work might be, I refuse to bet on the underdog here.
It’s Christopher Nolan’s time to win. Please do not resist.
WILL WIN: Christopher Nolan
SHOULD WIN: Justine Triet
Senior Arts Editor Rami Mahdi can be reached at rhmahdi@umich.edu.
Best Actor
Let’s give it up for Paul Giamatti (“Sideways”). “The Holdovers” might have had an excellent script and supporting cast, but Giamatti’s tender and comedic performance is what made this ’70s period piece click. His curmudgeonly cynic won over audiences and critics alike using the power of movie magic lazy eyes and Marcus Aurelius, crafting a performance that unlocks a rich character study.
Unfortunately for Giamatti nation, the capital “M” Moment is here, and it has no mercy for those left in its wake. While Colman Domingo (“The Color Purple”) in “Rustin” and Jeffrey Wright in “American Fiction” (“The Batman”) give admirable performances in their roles, and Bradley Cooper (“Nightmare Alley”) gives a performance in his role in “Maestro,” the obvious candidate for this year’s Best Actor is Cillian Murphy as the eponymous J. Robert Oppenheimer.
“Oppenheimer” was the smash hit of the year, and Murphy’s masterful performance is what owes much of its success too. With a main character permeating an amount of patheticness almost too great to contain on a 70mm IMAX screen, Murphy gives the performance of the year portraying the brilliance of a man discovering a new world and the existential dread of a man who has damned his own. As such a large film in scope and presentation, Murphy can anchor it as a story not only about a destroyer of worlds, but a destroyer of one man’s psyche.
That’s why Murphy is both my pick for who deserves to win and who is likely to win. Hopefully this performance and inevitable Oscar win open the door for many more Cillian Murphy leading man performances down the line.
WILL WIN: Cillian Murphy
SHOULD WIN: Cillian Murphy
Daily Arts Writer William Cooper can be reached at wcoop@umich.edu.
Best Actress
Forget about Best Actress, Emma Stone (“La La Land”) in “Poor Things” is likely the best performance all year. Stone shows remarkable range and comedic timing, all while jumping from one developmental stage to the next. Her role is also unlike anyone else’s. At times, Stone is as physical and expressive as the silent era giants. She essentially plays five characters, and she has rightfully racked up more than her fair share of awards.
Lily Gladstone (“First Cow”) is also in the running with her recent SAG Award win, and she’s a fresh face among veterans — the likes of Stone, Annette Bening (“Captain Marvel”) and Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”). Gladstone sets herself apart in a star-studded Scorsese film, and that’s not easy. As the first female character Scorsese has properly developed since Margot Robbie in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” she excels in the pivotal role, evoking quiet paranoia like a bug resigned to a spider’s web. The rest of the nominees take on more conventionally dramatic roles with Sandra Hüller’s (“Anatomy of a Fall”) masterful juggling of a verbose character firmly keeping her name in the race.
Despite this, Emma Stone’s performance is tremendously brave and off-beat. If her BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice wins are any indication, Stone may be awarded with her second Academy Award.
WILL WIN: Emma Stone
SHOULD WIN: Emma Stone
Daily Arts Contributor Ben Luu can be reached at benllv@umich.edu.
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr.’s (“Dolittle”) win is almost inevitable. He’s already won at the BAFTA Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards for his role as Lewis Strauss in “Oppenheimer,” beating out most of his fellow Oscar nominees. There’s no reason to believe the Oscars will be any different. For the past seven years, the SAG winner for Best Supporting Actor has also won the Oscar in the same category. It helps that “Oppenheimer” will probably sweep the Oscars, having scored a total of 13 nominations, the most of any film this year. Even apart from the success of “Oppenheimer,” Downey Jr. is more than deserving of the win. This is his third Oscar nomination, but he has shockingly never won. Winning this year would culminate his lifetime of iconic roles (most notably Iron Man). As Lewis Strauss, he tapped into his sophisticated side with this role and completely expanded my perception of his acting capabilities. His villainous character was a sharp deviation from his heroic character, Tony Stark, and he proved he’s capable of playing both hero and villain. There’s next to nothing standing in Downy Jr.’s way this year, and he deserves an easy win.
WILL WIN: Robert Downey Jr.
SHOULD WIN: Robert Downey Jr.
Daily Arts Writer Zara Manna can be reached at zaraam@umich.edu.
Best Supporting Actress
Three words: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Dolomite Is My Name”).
There’s not much more to say about this year’s race for Best Supporting Actress. While all five nominees delivered memorable moments, none of them have anything on Randolph, who has become a verifiable awards season superstar. Randolph is nominated for her performance in “The Holdovers” for playing Mary Lamb, a boarding school cook who has just lost her only son to the Vietnam War. Her performance is understated and ragged, bringing a steady sense of melancholy to her character while also channeling sharp, breathtaking moments of anger and rage. It’s a beautifully crafted portrait of grief — and it caught a lot of people’s attention. Although Randolph is a Tony-nominated industry veteran, she wasn’t at the forefront of many conversations going into this awards season. That changed quickly after she took the stage for her Golden Globes win. Her presence was magnetic and warm, her acceptance speech carefully delivered and genuine. Since then, she’s steadily been collecting awards — SAG, Critics Choice and BAFTA, to name a few — handling each win gracefully. Her excellent performance and ongoing awards season charm seem likely to culminate in a win on Oscars night.
That isn’t to discredit the other nominees in this category. America Ferrera’s (“Dumb Money”) pop-feminism monologue in “Barbie” won’t soon be forgotten, nor will Emily Blunt’s (“A Quiet Place”) understated, introspective performance in “Oppenheimer.” Best Supporting Actress is a strong category but certainly not strong enough to stand up to Randolph’s momentum. Her imminent win is perhaps Oscars night’s safest bet.
WILL WIN: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
SHOULD WIN: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Daily Arts Writer Lola D’Onofrio can be reached at lolad@umich.edu.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay is a confusing category. All five of the nominees are real contenders: “The Zone of Interest” and “Oppenheimer” are meticulously crafted historical reflections, “Barbie” and “American Fiction” are explosive modern social satirizations and “Poor Things” is a finely crafted fragmentation of both. While there’s a case to be made for any of the five films winning, the three films that seem most likely to score are “Oppenheimer,” “American Fiction” and “Barbie.”
The “Oppenheimer” win would be dependent on the film’s broader performance on Oscars night. The film is a favorite in a variety of categories, including Best Picture. Given the film’s awards season success and the Academy’s affinity for award sweeps, a proliferation of “Oppenheimer” wins seems likely. Whether or not those wins include Best Adapted Screenplay remains to be seen, but if “Oppenheimer” sweeps on Oscars night, a screenplay win wouldn’t be shocking.
“Barbie” also has a strong case. A cultural phenomenon and a financial success, this is the film’s best shot at a big win. Snubbed in a variety of categories — including Gerwig for Best Director and Robbie for Best Actress — a win is highly likely, if only as a show of support for the film and its broader relevance. “American Fiction” is the third clear possibility in this category. A smart, personal film about writing, authorship and reclamation, it is perhaps the most technically excellent adaptation of its source material. It’s also a well-made film all around, generating praise without many Oscar nominations. This is the one big category the film could realistically win, and there’s been a fair amount of campaigning for that outcome. The film is bolstered by great performances and sharp social commentary. If that’s enough for it to overcome the “Barbenheimer” noise remains to be seen.
Best Adapted Screenplay is a toss-up, but the Academy’s obsession with sweeps gives “Oppenheimer” the advantage, barring voter interest in social commentary, in which case “American Fiction” or “Barbie” both stand a decent chance.
WILL WIN: “Oppenheimer”
SHOULD WIN: “American Fiction”
Daily Arts Writer Lola D’Onofrio can be reached at lolad@umich.edu.
Best Original Screenplay
“Anatomy of a Fall” is this year’s best screenplay. This means, definitionally, that it will and should win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Now, this isn’t to downplay the other entries in the category. “May December” was a major change from writers Alex Mechanik and Samy Burch’s “Hunger Games” ventures. “The Holdovers” was the first true instant holiday classic in an age of everyone calling things “instant classics” for some reason. “Past Lives” was an awkwardly sincere attempt at capturing the act of yearning. “Maestro” was another movie with a screenplay.
But who are we kidding? Only one film of these revived the long-dormant courtroom drama. “Anatomy of a Fall’s” whip-smart dialogue hides more than just a murder mystery behind its actor’s lips. Meta-commentary, belief, hatred and the oxymoronic truth within fiction are all loaded into this high-tempo dialogue-driven flick.
If through some evil twist “Anatomy of a Fall” doesn’t win, then all that means is the Academy’s generosity contains something dirtier and meaner.
Get it? No? That was a line in the script.
SHOULD WIN: “Anatomy of a Fall”
WILL WIN: “Anatomy of a Fall”
Senior Arts Editor Rami Mahdi can be reached at rhmahdi@umich.edu.
Best Cinematography
With the recent successes of Hoyte van Hoytema’s (“Interstellar”) “Oppenheimer” at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards and more, the film has quickly risen to the top across every category for which it received a nomination (which happens to be most of them). However, Van Hoytema’s opponents can’t be immediately discounted. Most notably, Robbie Ryan’s (“Marriage Story”) work in “Poor Things” offers similarly experimental and ambitious filming techniques that deserve recognition.
Like “Oppenheimer,” “Poor Things” dominated the BAFTAs. However, the two films establish radically different moods, with “Poor Things” set in a colorful, fantastical rendition of the Victorian period while “Oppenheimer” remains far more grounded in realism. Ryan’s use of wide angles, zooms and shots reminiscent of old portraits effectively creates a world both whimsical and a little eerie. It forms the gorgeous, yet strange, world of Bella (Emma Stone, “La La Land”) that feels like a lucid dream. However, while its iconic cinematography captured my heart and will likely prove to be influential, “Poor Things” finds a hard-to-beat rival in “Oppenheimer.”
“Oppenheimer” takes the opposite approach to capturing history as a biopic creating a heartbreakingly realistic portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, “Sunshine”). Using color and black-and-white film to juxtapose two perspectives, van Hoytema highlights the complexity of Oppenheimer’s life and the beginnings of the Cold War. This marries nicely with director Christopher Nolan’s (“Interstellar”) own style of realism that left me wondering if someone was cutting onions. Notably, the team behind “Oppenheimer” had to create the 65 mm black-and-white IMAX film used in the production, which ultimately paid off as the black-and-white created an effective and visually intriguing contrast between timelines. Despite my love of the beauty and uniqueness of “Poor Things,” I have to be honest and say that “Oppenheimer” is likely to nab the Oscar for cinematography thanks to Van Hoytema’s shots, which are haunting, riveting and stunning all at once.
WILL WIN: Hoyte van Hoytema, “Oppenheimer”
SHOULD WIN: Hoyte van Hoytema, “Oppenheimer”
Daily Arts Contributor Isabelle Perraut can be reached at iperraut@umich.edu.
Best Costume Design
You can usually put costume design nominees in three categories: period piece, big budget intellectual property adaptation, or fantasy sci-fi genre flick. While the past few years have pointed to the intellectual properties earning the award (likely because when costume designers get more resources and funding, magic is made), “Poor Things” seems to be pulling ahead in precursor awards this year. The film leans into the costuming style of both period pieces and fantasy sci-fi genre flicks, and that’ll certainly draw the attention of academy voters. While “Barbie” is the film’s biggest competition in this category, “Poor Things” is nominated in more categories at the Academy Awards, keeping it at the forefront of voter’s minds and giving it a competitive edge. The nominees all have their own merits, but “Poor Things” relies very heavily on costuming to tell Bella’s story. Her clothing becomes more experimental as the story goes on to show Bella’s development as an individual. The film uses many mediums to show Bella’s growth, but costuming certainly stands out and will likely lead to Holly Waddington (“Lady Macbeth”) taking home an Academy Award on March 10.
WILL WIN: “Poor Things”
SHOULD WIN: “Poor Things”
Daily Arts Writer Gaby Cummings can be reached at gabyc@umich.edu.
Best Film Editing
The “Oppenheimer” sweep will consume many of these smaller categories. It will wash over them like a tsunami and overwhelm the night. And partially for good reason: The film editing of “Oppenheimer” is snappy and eye-catching. It knows when to pull back and let the outstanding visuals take the front stage. The jumps between the different time periods are clearly conveyed and full of tension, the contrast between eras improving the storytelling instead of making it confusing. It stands above “The Holdovers,” “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which all excel at editing on both a small and large scale.
However, in no world does the editing of “Oppenheimer” even approach the masterpiece that is “Anatomy of a Fall,” which lives and dies on its editing. It’s a tense mystery, a thrilling courtroom drama and a family tragedy all in one; it deftly balances all aspects of its intricate story, weaving in between timelines and storylines with ease.
I’m calling the long shot and saying that “Anatomy of a Fall” will walk away with its much-deserved Oscar, being one of the few survivors of the “Oppenheimer” sweep.
WILL WIN: “Anatomy of a Fall”
SHOULD WIN: “Anatomy of a Fall”
Managing Arts Editor Zach Loveall can be reached at zloveall@umich.edu.
Best Production Design
It’s expected that any movie nominated for Best Production Design will have a beautifully constructed set. All the sets are impressive, and the way to differentiate between them is by the commitment to detail. Maybe I’m biased, but “Barbie” felt like a scene plucked straight out of my childhood imagination. Every element was considered by director Greta Gerwig: the complimentary pink hues, the cramped house proportions, the cartoon food in Barbie’s Dreamhouse. Any set that causes an international paint shortage deserves the win. Its whimsical feel made it easy to overlook some script issues because I was too busy wondering how everything looked so bright and plastic-like. I’ve never seen anything remotely similar to that set and it’s impressive how production designer Sarah Greenwood created an entire new world. “It was one of the most difficult philosophical, intellectual, cerebral pieces of work we’ve ever done,” Greenwood said. “How can that be? It’s ‘Barbie.’ But it really was.”
Unfortunately for Gerwig, there’s a chance “Barbie” will be overlooked at the Oscars. Margot Robbie (“Babylon”) was already snubbed in the Best Actress in a Leading Role category and the movie feels too mainstream to be taken seriously at the awards ceremony. There could be an “Oppenheimer” sweep, but I think “Poor Things” is more likely to take this category. While being completely different in style, Oppenheimer’s set rivaled “Barbie’s.” It had a 1930s surrealist vibe that felt like a fever dream. If it can’t be “Barbie,” then “Poor Things” deserves the win.
“Barbie” set director Katie Spencer remarked that the set “made people happy … You couldn’t help but smile.” If it’s not a winner by Oscar standards, “Barbie” is still a winner in so many hearts.
WILL WIN: “Poor Things”
SHOULD WIN: “Barbie”
Daily Arts Writer Zara Manna can be reached at zaraam@umich.edu.
Best Visual Effects
It’s going to be “Godzilla: Minus One.”
WILL WIN: “Godzilla: Minus One”
SHOULD WIN: “Godzilla: Minus One”
Managing Arts Editor Zach Loveall can be reached at zloveall@umich.edu.
Best Animated Short Film
Choosing what mediums to use for animation has never been clearly defined, and half of the beauty of animation is using this question to enhance their stories. Last year’s Oscar-nominated claymation short “An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It” saw the main character realizing he was a clay figure being physically manipulated while “My Year of Dicks” collaged five art styles to describe the five potential love interests of the main character. This year’s “Our Uniform” (Yegane Moghaddam, “On the Cover”) immediately caught my eye for that reason, with clothing seams as the set backdrop of a short featuring an Iranian school girl talking about clothing, school uniforms and self-expression. Her school bus travels along the seams to arrive at the school building and her teacher walks alternately back and forth across the seams to pull down the front and then the back of her hijab, in what’s depicted as a silly sequence.
Despite both being less than 15 minutes, “Ninety-Five Senses” (Jared and Jerusha Hess, “Napoleon Dynamite”) and “Pachyderme” (Stéphanie Clément, “Dans L’ombre”) subvert the audience’s expectations via storylines that are more complex than many two-hour films I’ve seen. At first, both shorts felt like straightforward stories. ”Ninety-Five Senses” starts like a TED-Ed video, with an old man (Tim Blake Nelson, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”) sitting in a chair, talking about the five senses; “Pachyderme” starts with a girl talking about summers visiting her grandparents, telling what feels like a surreal fairytale to the audience. But the conclusion for both shorts is very clever. The reveal in “Ninety-Five Senses” is sudden and hits like a wall of bricks and “Pachyderme” takes a while to unravel its secrets, but it slowly becomes clear as to why the narration felt eerie from the beginning.
I would be elated if any of these three shorts won the Oscar, but “Ninety-Five Senses” is my pick.
WILL WIN: “Ninety-Five Senses”
SHOULD WIN: “Ninety-Five Senses”
Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.
Best Sound
As much as I would like to avoid sounding like a broken record, “Oppenheimer” will win this one. Its technical work has been endlessly praised for its expert use and breath-taking moments. The majesty and horror of “Oppenheimer” are concentrated into a handful of scenes where the sound is first and foremost: The successful bomb test, Los Alamos receiving news on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Oppenheimer’s final monologue on his security clearance. The sound design of “Oppenheimer” dominates many of its most iconic scenes. But it doesn’t stand up to its competition, all of whom are worthy in their own right, with “Maestro” standing above them all. “Maestro” is largely a forgettable film but the same cannot be said for its sound design; it uses music, atmospheric sound and everything in between to create a sonic quality unheard of from the rest of the nominees. If the film was just made up of its climatic scene when Cooper performs at Ely Cathedral as Leonard Bernstein, it would still deserve this award.
WILL WIN: “Oppenheimer”
SHOULD WIN: “Maestro”
Managing Arts Editor Zach Loveall can be reached at zloveall@umich.edu.
Best Original Score
For over a decade, Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer were one of Hollywood’s great power duos, creating some of the 2010s’ most memorable film moments but also its biggest cliche. Thus, when the two went their separate ways in 2019, with Zimmer choosing to score Denis Villenueve’s “Dune” over Nolan’s “Tenet,” it was the end of one era and the much-needed start of another.
Ludwig Göransson’s (“Tenet”) soundtrack for “Oppenheimer” is a perfect match for the film, with its plucky synth notes reminiscent of subatomic particles smashing into each other, its accelerating string passages evocative of a runaway chain reaction and its powerful falling horn leitmotif symbolizing the dread felt by Oppenheimer. When the film’s name is inevitably called for the Best Original Score category, the honor will be well-deserved. But for as effective as Göransson’s maximalism was in “Oppenheimer,” Mark Orton (“Nebraska”) proved the worth of minimalism with his melancholic soundtrack for “The Holdovers,” the best soundtrack of the year that was sadly snubbed of a nomination for Best Original Score. Admittedly, the soundtrack relies heavily on non-original music, which probably doomed its award chances, but the Orton-composed solo piano pieces excellently capture the coldness of a lonely winter break at a New England prep school.
WILL WIN: “Oppenheimer”
SHOULD WIN: “The Holdovers”
Managing Arts Editor Jack Moeser can be reached at jmoeser@umich.edu.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Often these smaller categories are where a sweep builds up its numbers. However, this year, Best Makeup and Hairstyling is looking like a two-horse race between “Maestro” and “Poor Things,” neither of which I expect to dominate the night. It seems to me that the conversation has been leaning toward “Maestro” for fantastic-looking old-age makeup on Bradley Cooper and the somewhat problematic nose. Yeah, you heard me right — a problematic nose. In the film, Cooper portrays Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein and wears a prosthetic nose throughout the film, which has been accused of being antisemitic. Bernstein’s own children have defended the prosthetic, but Cooper didn’t help soothe the accusations by saying it “didn’t look right” without the prosthetic. That being said, the rest of the makeup blends in amazingly well and is a far cry from the days when you could see the exact outline of facial prosthetics.
While “Maestro” is getting all the buzz, “Poor Things” surpasses it with more intricate makeup, prosthetics and hairstyling that are just as seamless. Willem Dafoe (“The Lighthouse”) has a full face of makeup the entire film, as his character is scarred and disfigured. It perfectly balances the line between surreal and realistic, all while allowing Dafoe to perform through the cosmetics instead of dominating scenes. The hairstyling is exquisitely detailed, not using wigs even though Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter changes hairstyles multiple times and looks absolutely nothing like her real hair. “Poor Things” might not win but it does deserve the award.
WILL WIN: “Maestro”
SHOULD WIN: “Poor Things”
Managing Arts Editor Zach Loveall can be reached at zloveall@umich.edu.
Best Documentary Short
Director of “Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó” Sean Wang’s (“Dìdi”) filmmaking style is special in that he’s able to create meaningful, honest portrayals without needing a defined plot. In the 2021 short “H.A.G.S. (Have a Good Summer)” he reconnects with two middle school classmates. In his 2020 short “Still Here,” based on the last residents of Taiwanese village Kaohsiung, nostalgia pieces together the sometimes extravagant, sometimes subdued moments in the subject matter’s lives. “Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó” is no different. The film was described by The Wrap as “a portrait of how the most ordinary lives, when viewed up close, become extraordinary.” It follows his paternal grandma, his Nǎi Nai, Yi Yan Fuei; his maternal grandma, his Wài Pó, Chang Li Hua; and their lives with each other and him. The short acts as a window into the rich existence of two family members well into the later years of their lives — at times mellow, at times vibrant and always brimming with joy.
In a beautiful testament to music education in the U.S. school system, “The Last Repair Shop” (Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers, “A Concerto Is a Conversation”) focuses on an instrument repair shop serving students of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The full circle setup of the documentary displays the life stories of shop technicians Dana, Paty, Duane and Steve, interspersed with four students explaining their musical aspirations. It mirrors the life cycle of the string, brass, woodwind, and keyboard instruments passing from start to finish of a student’s musical journey, repairs interspersed throughout. The orchestral score, which features a few of the students and shop technicians, makes the entire story arc magical, just the way that music education should feel for the next generation of student musicians.
Arlo Washington, the titular subject of “The Barber of Little Rock” (Christine Turner, “J’Nai Bridges Unamplified” and John Hoffman, “The Antidote”) wears many hats in his everyday life as a barber, an educator who runs the Washington Barber College and the founder of People Trust, a nonprofit loan fund and community-development financial institution. Mr. Washington’s goal is to empower low-to-moderate income communities near Little Rock, Ark. composed largely of Black residents, bridging the racial wealth gap via economic justice. The community members who have worked with Mr. Washington give their voices to the film as well, between the people who have received funding from People Trust and the students at his college, bringing together a multitude of voices to the issue of economic segregation and how people such as Mr. Washington are trying to take back economic power.
Wang has been (rightfully) seeing a lot of press attention recently and “The Last Repair Shop” received the Critics’ Choice Best Short Documentary. “The Barber of Little Rock” checked off all the boxes I wanted in a documentary as a well-presented, journalistic piece, and for that reason, it deserves the Oscar.
WILL WIN: “The Last Repair Shop”
SHOULD WIN: “The Barber of Little Rock”
Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.