The Whole Academy Should Be Kirsten Dunst

2025 Oscars Post #1

I woke up at 7:30am on January 23rd weirdly excited to be disappointed. I was at peace knowing that in one and a half hours I would be in possession of the following: no less than 100 text messages, 20+ new screenshots of tweets, and a renewed skepticism for the Academy. I braced myself for the regurgitated discourse that dusts up as the contenders are revealed: “I’ve never even heard of any of these movies, where is [insert the worst CGI bullshit you’ve ever seen]?” Wake up! Awards are for movie people!… and the Academy proves to be the oddest bunch of movie people there are.

This year I was particularly vexed because there were two movies that were successful with critics and casual moviegoers alike: Dune: Part Two and Challengers. While the former did pick up a few nominations, it didn’t meet its predecessor’s success despite being, in my opinion, a better movie. I’ll save my commentary on Challengers snubs for my notes below. I’m just saying that if the Academy voted in the interest of upping their broadcast ratings, they had options.

I should have seen this coming because first there were SAG nominations, BAFTA nominations and the entire Golden Globes ceremony. All of these shows have had heavy representation of two films I cannot believe are seriously in the running: Wicked (10 Oscar noms) and Emilia Pérez (13 Oscar noms). Admittedly, I have not watched Emilia Pérez yet, but plan to this week or next. It’s nominations are shocking to me due to the backlash from both transgender and Mexican people feeling the story is inauthentic to both parties. I don’t want to gloss over the Academy nominating a transgender woman, Karla Sofia Gascón, for an Oscar in the Best Actress category for the first time. Progress is progress and that deserves celebration. That said, it is the bare minimum to appropriately recognize diversity. Maybe it’s just my skepticism, but I can just feel voters patting themselves on the back. Anyone who really, actually loves the craft of filmmaking who is riding for any below the line awards for Wicked is insane. And I know, I know, the sets were practical and it cost hundreds of millions to make and on and on. So then why does it look like that? Why is it nominated for both editing and production design when the color grading can best be described as dirty dishwater?

It was also reported that many voters didn’t complete the screeners they were sent for consideration. They need to embody their fellow member, Kirsten Dunst. Kirsten Dunst sees everything, because she is a [serious] member of the Academy:

I don’t care if we leave the common blockbuster fan behind, but if we’re doing it, let’s commit. I’ve long been privately championing a return to pretentiousness, here’s our chance. Let’s respond as bluntly as Dunst when asked what should be a considered a silly question.

Below are my further thoughts and predictions on some of the 97th Academy Award nominations & winners.

Disclaimer: I will be spending the next few weeks filling my blind spots. I still need to see Sing Sing, Nickel Boys, Emilia Pérez, and I'm Still Here.

Best Cinematography

• The Brutalist, Lol Crawley

• Dune: Part Two, Greig Fraser

• Emilia Pérez, Paul Guillaume

• Maria, Edward Lachman

• Nosferatu, Jarin Blaschke

Should Win: Missing from the category altogether, Conclave. I think I gave this a 3.5 or 4, but I found the cinematography & production design to actually be the most artistic things about it as a whole.

Will Win: The Brutalist. I’ll be fine with this since there are some shots in this that made my eyes cross from the opening scene to the neck snapping style change at the film’s epilogue. Someone smarter than me will have to let me know if they think voters will consider the decision to shoot this on VistaVision film will have any weight in this category or if that will be a bigger play for director, best picture or editing.

Best Sound

• A Complete Unknown

• Dune: Part Two

• Emilia Pérez

• Wicked

• The Wild Robot

Should Win: Dune: Part Two. I would have liked to see Challengers nominated in this category. The sound edit was a beating pulse even over the innovative score during the tennis match scenes. Also the sound of Tashi’s knee cracking was so sickening I can hear it in my head now. Two more honorable mentions: the squelching of The Substance, the windshield wipers as the screen fades to black in Anora.

All of that said, I’d also be fine with A Complete Unknown here. I was elated that they gave the keys in “Like A Rolling Stone” their own specific lore in the scene where it’s played the first time. More of a screenplay nod but I also thought it sounded fantastic.

Will Win: Wicked or Dune: Part Two. I know the actors in Wicked sang live on set which is cool, I guess, and might be impressive to voters. Dune won for sound in 2022 so I could see it going the same way again.

Best Editing

• Anora, Sean Baker

• The Brutalist, Dávid Jancsó

• Conclave, Nick Emerson

• Emilia Pérez, Juliette Welfling

• Wicked, Myron Kerstein

Should Win: Sean Baker for Anora. I think there’s something slightly self aggrandizing about editing your own work (he is both the writer and director of the film), but Baker was clearly tough enough on himself that the final cut speaks for itself.

Will Win: I honestly have no idea but I’m sure I’ll be mad.

Best Production Design

• The Brutalist, Judy Becker

• Conclave, Suzie Davies

• Dune: Part Two, Patrice Vermette

• Nosferatu, Craig Lathrop

• Wicked, Nathan Crowley

Should Win: The Brutalist. This film looks absolutely incredible for it’s budget (much more on the controversy around that below in the Best Actor category). While Becker is responsible for the top notch overall production design, including the emerging building the film centers on, I was floored by Sebastian Pardo’s work on the text & graphic design of this film. From the first full length trailer I saw in the theater I was just in awe of the words moving across the screen. I sent it to at least three designers, screaming at them to “please look at this!!!!” When I saw the film and the full opening credits rolled across a long shot of a bus speeding to from New York to Philadelphia with the score filling every inch of space in the theater I’m not kidding, I cried.

Recommended reading on typography in film.

Will Win: Please god, anything but Wicked

Best Adapted Screenplay

• A Complete Unknown, Jay Cocks & James Mangold

• Conclave, Peter Straughan

• Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain & Nicolas Livecchi

• Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes

• Sing Sing, Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin & John "Divine G" Whitfield

Should Win: A Complete Unknown. I love the reports of Bob Dylan basically acting out the entire screenplay with James Mangold and then telling him to “go with god.” That’s just undeniably cool. I have yet to see Nickel Boys and Sing Sing so my opinion may change here before the broadcast in March.

Will Win: Emilia Pérez. This is an adapted screenplay from the opera by the same name written by the film’s writer and director, Jacques Audiard. I know I’m a hypocrite because I say it’s cool how involved Baker and Corbet are in their own work, but there’s something undeniably tacky about it in this case.

Best Original Screenplay

• Anora, Sean Baker

• The Brutalist, Brady Corbet & Mona Fastvold

• A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg

• September 5, Tim Fehlbaum & Moritz Binder

• The Substance, Coralie Fargeat

Should Win: Coralie Fargeat for The Substance. The original screenplay awards historically get it right for me. It seems to be the category where the Academy is willing to take a bigger risk and award something out of their box (Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Juno).

Will Win: Coralie Fargeat for The Substance. For the reasons mentioned above but I think it bodes well that she won best screenplay when this premiered at Cannes.

Best Score

• The Brutalist, Daniel Blumberg

• Conclave, Volker Bertelmann

• Emilia Pérez, Clément Ducol & Camille

• Wicked, John Powell & Stephen Schwartz

• The Wild Robot, Kris Bowers

Should Win: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Challengers. I mean, come on, this was a lock for me when I first heard it in April. So innovative and honestly, just fun. Multiple tracks from this film ended up on my friends’ “Top Songs of 2024” Spotify lists— that’s impact!

Will Win: Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist. When I left my first screening of The Brutalist I texted the Film Club chat from one of the escalators at AMC 34th Street. “The Brutalist is going to beat Challengers for best score and I’m okay with that.” I honestly would have been happy with either winning but the Academy knocking Challengers out of the race makes this less of a Sophie’s Choice. Blumberg’s score moved me to tears multiple times throughout the film just like Ludwig Göransson’s did in Oppenheimer last year. I’ll leave you with David Sims’s spoiler-free review:

Best Costume Design

• A Complete Unknown, Arianne Phillips

• Conclave, Lisy Christl

• Gladiator II, Janty Yates

• Nosferatu, Linda Muir

• Wicked, Paul Tazewell

Should Win: Lisy Christl for Conclave. Dedicated readers will know I am NOT a movie theater talker… but I broke my silence during Conclave at Angelika to lean over to my friend Eli and whisper “they have that shit on.” I have to hand it to them, Catholics have always had immaculate aesthetics. I think Christl deserves the trophy.

Two honorable mentions here: Jaquline West for Dune: Part Two, the pulls from the Paco Rabbane F/W ‘20 runway for Florence Pugh’s character were stunning. Jonathan Anderson for both Challengers and Queer. I wrote about the costuming in Challengers a little bit in my bob haircut piece. I just adore his work in Guadagnino’s films.

Will Win: Paul Tazewell for Wicked. To quote one Aretha Franklin “great gowns, beautiful gowns.”

Rabbane head piece on the runway & in the film

Best Supporting Actress

• Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown

• Ariana Grande, Wicked

• Felicity Jones, The Brutalist

• Isabella Rossellini, Conclave

• Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Should Win: Isabella Rossellini. People are up in arms about this being a true supporting performance. I’m not saying we should have a 4-10 minute winner every year, but I can admit when a short performance is so good it really changes the totality of a film (Michael Stuhlbarg I will avenge your supporting performance in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name). If you’re still mad about her being nominated for such a short performance, pretend she’s getting a delayed nomination for Blue Velvet or something. Additionally, I would have loved to see Margaret Qualley pick up a nomination for The Substance.

Will Win: Zoe Saldaña. I haven’t been able to get through Emilia Pérez yet. Sometime between now and March I will channel Ms. Dunst and watch it beginning to end. That said, I have always maintained I love a big swing. While I think the film is a big swing, I think it’s also ultimately an insensitive one (like 2022’s Blonde) which spoils Saldaña’s performance for me a bit. From what I have seen she did a lot with what she was given and I can respect that. Her speeches for her wins to date have been moving and the voters eat that right up.

Best Supporting Actor

• Yura Borisov, Anora

• Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

• Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown

• Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

• Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Should Win: Guy Pearce. My rotted brain immediately compared him to Brad Pitt after seeing this the first time. I don’t know if it’s maybe because they look kind of similar or if it’s because it’s the kind of role you can imagine Pitt doing well in. On my second watch, I left Pitt in the past. Pearce brings an ease and then a sickness and then an ease again and then horror and frustration to the screen. I really would like to see him win here.

Honorable mention for Joe Alwyn in The Brutalist. There’s a scene where he’s shot from behind with his head bowed and his hands on the wall and it’s like you can touch the tension beneath his dinner jacket. I have enjoyed his previous work but I did not know he had this dog in him.

Will Win: Kieran Culkin. I adore Kieran and look forward to seeing him in movies and TV for years to come. This is a good performance but doesn’t hold a candle to Pearce’s. My prediction here is based on wins to date at shows that have already come and gone. I would be happy to be wrong.

Best Actress

• Cynthia Erivo, Wicked

• Karla Sofia Gascón, Emilia Pérez

• Mikey Madison, Anora

• Demi Moore, The Substance

• Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here

Should Win: Demi Moore. She is something form another planet in The Substance. When I saw it with a friend, he didn’t know that she had been married to Ashton Kutcher for a time. I told him that growing up that was all I knew about her, seeing tabloid headlines in the airport acting like she was the crypt keeper at 40 years old. I think she brought something personal to this performance that I cant imagine anyone else conjuring up.

Will Win: Demi Moore. I just can’t imagine the Academy was unmoved by her speech after her win at the Golden Globes, but stranger things have happened. I’m not even pretending that Erivo has a chance here.

Best Actor

• Adrian Brody, The Brutalist

• Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

• Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

• Ralph Fiennes, Conclave

• Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Should Win: Adrian Brody. The last week has been a perfect example of two things: a brilliant smear campaign and the general public’s lack of media literacy. Publishing headlines that were out of proportion with the reality of the use of an AI tool in a tiny portion of post editing is really just top notch slander. Whoever did it knew that the general public, average “film twitter” user, and every reactionary (sometimes that Venn diagram is a circle) wouldn’t click the links to read further and wouldn’t care when Corbet clarified what actually happened. People have made up their minds on a scandal.

The reality as I understand it is this: generative AI was used while editing a small portion of Brody reading a letter in VO in Hungarian. According to the dialect coach, there are certain sounds that are nearly impossible to mimic if you’re not a native speaker. The tool was used to lightly alter Brody’s pronunciation in a few areas of the letter. Additionally, it’s been reported that Midjourney was used to create images of buildings that were then redrawn and enhanced by real illustrators.

There are a few things here that people seem to be unwilling to accept: 1. Speech editing is a normal part of post production. Whether it happens completely by hand or by hand with a tool that speeds up the process, it happens. This 3.5 hour film was made on a budget of $10 million which is unreal if you know anything about production budgets. The fact that it looks and sounds like it does for that cost is nothing short of a miracle. When faced with the prospect of spending weeks in post on two minutes of voice over and blowing precious budget or having an editor use a tool to make that process more efficient, the answer is clear. 2. The use of Midjourney at the beginning of a creative process is far more common than the average person may know. I happen to work in an industry where it’s sometimes used in this exact same way. It’s a tool for concept art before something is actually produced by a team of creative directors, directors, photographers, illustrators and producers. Apparently that is how it was used in this film and if you don’t think that this is happening in every studio and agency across the world right now, I’ll hold your hand while I tell you that you’re naïve.

Brody’s work in this film is second to none. A few days after I saw The Brutalist the first time, I rewatched The Pianist. If he won an Oscar for that performance he more than deserves it for this one. That’s not to say he isn’t spectacular in The Pianist, just that this movie is operating on an entirely different plain with what I believe to me much harder challenges. It’s lazy commentary to say an actor “has control over their face,” but Brody knows how to use his charmingly odd looks in ways that just broke me. When László (Brody) arrives in Philadelphia and learns that his wife and niece are still living after the war, he folds into a crumpled up napkin of a man from head to toe. The relief and sadness and promise of that moment float from the screen and sit a rock on your chest that remains for the next few hours. His Hungarian-accented English throughout the film is so natural that if you care about minor tweaks to a two minute voice over in a foreign language I’m going to need you to look inside yourself and ask if you’re being a puritan.

Will Win: After all of that, Adrian Brody. One of the good things about the weird detached Academy is that they’re extremely offline. It’s entirely possible that some of them will miss this news cycle completely. It’s also possible that many of them work at studios already employing this kind of technology so they won’t consider it scandalous at all. Thankfully, there are also Academy voters who understand what it means to make a film of this scale on a shoestring budget. Again, I find it unlikely that movie people will boil a three hour performance down to a two minute voice over but the whole basis of the beginning of this post is that the Academy continues to disappoint.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I thought Timmy was wonderful in A Complete Unknown. That said, he has been passed over for better performances (Timothée Chalamet I will avenge your leading performance in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name). I think he’s on a Leo or JLC track where he will be snubbed over and over and then win for a mediocre performance down the line. Credit where credit is due, this man is campaigning and I’m enjoying every second of it.

Best Director

• Sean Baker, Anora

• Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

• James Mangold, A Complete Unknown

• Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez

• Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Should Win: Brady Corbet. It had been widely reported (and later confirmed during his Golden Globes acceptance speech) that Corbet fought A24 to keep creative control over the final cut of The Brutalist. That really means something, understanding what it takes to bring a feature to life, how many different interests are at play, how things can get away from the creative nucleus. In listening to interviews with Corbet, he is truly pretentious in a way that fills me with joy. Artists should hold their craft in high esteem. They should pour over their inspirations and know how to reference them. Ultimately, they should be serious and he is nothing short of that.

Will Win: Brady Corbet. I don’t think the AI stuff really hurts him at all.

Best Picture

• Anora (Neon)

• The Brutalist (A24)

• A Complete Unknown (Searchlight)

• Conclave (Focus)

• Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.)

• Emilia Pérez (Netflix)

• I'm Still Here (Sony Classics)

• Nickel Boys (Amazon/MGM)

• The Substance (Mubi)

• Wicked (Universal)

Should Win: The Brutalist. See above. Although I have a feeling that after I see Sing Sing I’m going to be upset that it’s not on this list.

Will Win: Genuinely unsure, but if it’s Emilia Pérez I will make January, 6 2021 look like a Girl Scout meeting. This will be our new Crash win of 2006.

I leave you with this undeniable fact:

RHOBH fans won

I already told you what I’ll be watching this week!! Talk to you later <3