Cinema Wellman’s (98th) Oscar Ballot

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David, and we are about to unveil Cinema Wellman’s 98th Oscar Ballot!

Well, not our 98th Oscar Ballot, but I’m sure you understood what I meant.

This episode will cover 23 of our 24 choices for this year’s Academy Awards. The only award we’ll skip today is the biggie, and we have an entire episode coming for you tomorrow that will rank all 10 of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

As of right now, and you know we’ll never give up our quest to see them all, I’ve screened 42 of the 50 films nominated for Oscars this year. 

And the eight movies I missed are spread across eight different categories which means if I haven’t seen all the nominees in a category, I’ve seen four out of the five.

I’m pretty confident that the following choices would be what we’d submit to the Academy if they were foolish enough to give us an actual ballot. 

I read this year that voters weren’t allowed to vote in a category unless they had seen ALL of the nominees.

And are they enforcing that with the honor system?

In Hollywood?

I say it would be foolish to give us a vote because, as I’ve said many times here, I just know what I like and what I don’t like and everything here is based on personal preferences and there is no wrong or right when it comes to opinions about art and all of this supports why giving awards to art is arbitrary and capricious.  

So, I’m not telling you who should win, nor am I predicting who will win (which is also ridiculous), all I’m giving you today is this year’s official Cinema Wellman Oscar Ballot.

We will be unveiling our ballot in the same order the Oscars were presented last year. There is one new category this year which is for “Casting,” and we’re just guessing where they’re going to sandwich that one in.

For some of the categories I will be telling you what number nomination is for that person. When I do this, I’m referring only to other nominations in the category they’re nominated for this year.

Several actors, actresses, and directors have also been nominated in the past in different categories such as screenplay or as producers of a Best Picture nominee. 

So…the envelopes PLEASE!!!

Titles highlighted in yellow are films I have not yet seen.

Supporting Actor

Benicio del Toro - 3rd (1W) (One Battle After Another)

Jacob Elordi - 1st (Frankenstein)

Delroy Lindo - 1st (Sinners)

Sean Penn - 6th (2W) (One Battle After Another)

Stellan Skarsgard - 1st (Sentimental Value)

Three first timers and two honored veterans in this category, and I’ll be happy if one of the first timers wins even if it’s not the one we cast our vote for. 

I’ve always enjoyed the work of both Delroy Lindo and Stellan Skarsgard, but the Cinema Wellman vote is going to Jacob Elordi for his portrayal of The Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.

I’ve seen roughly 15 Frankenstein movies, and Elordi showed me The Creature in a way I hadn’t seen since Karloff in the original.

Elordi’s creature is complex and discovers who he is, “I found what I am. What I’m made from. I am the child of a charnel house. A wreckage, assembled from refuse and discarded dead. A monster.”

This was one of my favorite movies of the year, and I love the director, so no surprise we went with Elordi. 

Costume Design

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

Sinners

I haven’t seen Avatar: Fire and Ash, but you know I would never vote for one of those movies for any award ever, so we have four nominees to choose from.

We’re going with a true period piece here and voting for Hamnet. Frankenstein and Sinners also featured exceptional costume work. 

From what I know of history, and the history of clothing, people used to wear some uncomfortable shit.

Layers and layers of uncomfortable shit.

Especially the ladies.

So when you see performers in a period piece and they look uncomfortable, the costume designers did a good job!

Original Score

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Ever since we did our “Film Composers of Note” episode, I’ve been trying to pay extra attention to the new movies I screen in search of up-and-coming composers I’m not familiar with.

All strong nominations here. I enjoyed the score for Bugonia very much as it captured the chaos and uncertainty of the story. 

Sinners also featured an excellent score in a movie that had music at its heart. 

But, barring a change of heart after a 2nd screening of Sinners, we’re going to cast our Cinema Wellman vote for Hamnet.

I thought the music was a perfect accompaniment to the drama in Mrs. and Mr. Shakespeare’s lives and on Mr. Shakespeare’s stage. 

Makeup & Hairstyling

Frankenstein

Kokuho

Sinners

The Smashing Machine

The Ugly Stepsister

This is always a fun category for me since I consider the makeup and hairstyling people true cinematic wizards.

They do stuff that really shouldn’t be possible, and they do it without CGI!

AMEN to that!

It’s not going to be getting our vote since we were more impressed with its Visual Effects (which they were NOT nominated for!), but let’s talk about The Ugly Stepsister for a minute.

It’s a Norwegian take on the classic Cinderella that features the tagline, “If the shoe doesn’t fit…”

If you’re unfamiliar with the ORIGINAL version of “Cinderella,” toes were chopped off to get into that slipper.

The Ugly Stepsister is a must see for body horror fans and is a biting commentary on the beauty and fashion industry.

At one point, one of the young women swallows a tapeworm egg thinking that she can then eat whatever she wants without gaining weight. 

When she does that on screen, I said out loud, “That’s not going to be pleasant coming out.”

I was correct, and it was much worse than I imagined. Wow!

As far as this category, our vote is going to Frankenstein for the fabulous transformation of Jacob Elordi into The Creature.

Those are hours and hours in that makeup chair, which cannot be fun. 

Live Action Short Film

Butcher’s Stain

A Friend of Dorothy

Jane Austen’s Period Drama

The Singers

Two People Exchanging Saliva

Wowie Wow Wow! This was, by far, the category of the year for me!

These were all exceptional short films and I’ll be happy with whichever one gets honored tomorrow night.

It’s not the case in every category during every year, but all of these shorts should be screened. 

Butcher’s Stain - (26 min.) “Samir, an Arab Israeli working in a supermarket in Tel Aviv, is accused of tearing down hostage posters in the break room. He sets out to prove his innocence to keep this job that he desperately needs.”

A Friend of Dorothy - (21 min.) “A lonely widow’s quiet life is upended when a teenage boy accidentally kicks his football into her garden.”

Jane Austen’s Period Drama - (13 min.) “England, 1813. In the middle of a long-awaited marriage proposal, Miss Estrogenia Talbot gets her period. Her suitor, Mr. Dickley mistakes the blood for an injury, and it soon becomes clear that his expensive education has missed a spot.”

The Singers - (18 min.) “An impromptu sing-off will decide the best singer in the bar tonight.”

Two People Exchanging Saliva - (36 min.) “In a society where kissing is punishable by death, and people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face. Angine, an unhappy woman, shops compulsively in a department store. There, she becomes fascinated by a playful salesgirl. Despite the prohibition of kissing, the two become close, raising the suspicions of a jealous colleague.”

Yes, you heard that last one right. 

One hour and fifty-four minutes in total, and I guarantee you more enjoyment and more feelings and more laughs and more tears in that 1:54 than you’ll get in the three hours and seventeen minutes of the latest Avatar Sweet and Sour or whatever it’s called. 

I loved all of these films, and will be delighted to hear who took the Oscar home, but these were all tremendous films.

I wish that would happen with Best Picture. 

Just ONCE!!!!

So difficult to choose between these, but our vote went to Two People Exchanging Saliva in a narrow victory over Jane Austen’s Period Drama and The Singers.

The Jane Austin short made me laugh, and the other made me cry, so status quo here at Cinema Wellman…where tears are shed. 

Animated Short Film

Butterfly

Forevergreen

The Girl Who Cried Pearls

Retirement Plan

The Three Sisters

Cinema Wellman’s vote is going to John Kelly’s Retirement Plan which is essentially a monologue by Domhall Gleeson about what his character will do once he finally has the “time.”

My favorite thing on his list is his confidence in “nailing” his final words. 

We all wish for that, right?

Adapted Screenplay

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

Train Dreams

I really enjoyed Train Dreams and Bugonia, and would love to read the source materials in the future, but Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” being adapted by Guillermo del Toro is going to get my vote each and every time. 

Original Screenplay

Blue Moon

It Was Just an Accident

Marty Supreme

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Although I enjoyed It Was Just an Accident and Sentimental Value, this category was a pretty easy choice for me.

Even though one of my criticisms of Sinners is that it's not quite sure what kind of movie it wants to be, it is certainly an original story, and we applaud originality here at Cinema Wellman, so they will get our vote. 

Supporting Actress

Elle Fanning - 1st (Sentimental Value)

Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas - 1st (Sentimental Value)

Amy Madigan - 2nd (Weapons)

Wunmi Mosaku - 1st (Sinners)

Teyana Taylor - 1st (One Battle After Another)

FOUR first timers here, and that’s always refreshing.

She will not be getting our vote, but kudos are in order for Amy Madigan who has done quality work for a long time now. This is her 2nd Oscar nomination as I mentioned, and her 1st one came 40 years ago!

That is dedication to the art and to the craft that I absolutely have to applaud. Amazing!

Cinema Wellman’s vote is going to Teyana Taylor in a movie that I really did not enjoy at all.

Her performance was my favorite part of it by far, so she got the vote. 

No issues with any of these potential winners, by the way. 

Original Song

“Dear Me” (Diane Warren)

“Golden” (KPop Demon Hunters)

“I Lied to You” (Sinners)

“Sweet Dreams of Joy” (Viva Verdi!)

“Train Dreams” (Train Dreams)

The category that is usually the bain of my existence has a clear cut winner in my mind this year.

A song I liked from a movie I liked. How odd!

Cinema Wellman’s vote goes to “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters because that movie deserves to be recognized for being great fun. 

Getting in that KPop van!

Documentary Feature

The Alabama Solution

Come See Me in the Good Light

Cutting Through Rocks

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

The Perfect Neighbor

Here’s what IMDb has to say about our vote in this category; “Facing an incurable diagnosis, two poet lovers embark on a poignant yet unexpectedly humorous exploration of love, mortality, and life’s moments.”

Come See Me in the Good Light is the story of poet/writer Andrea Gibson and her battle with ovarian cancer. 

But what this documentary was really about, for me, was Gibson’s love for her wife Megan Falley, along with her courage while facing her diagnosis.

Gibson’s words brought me to tears countless times during this film. The way she describes the love she has for Megan makes the deepest, most thoughtfully profound declaration of love I have ever made to a woman sound like the love a small child has for a toy. 

This was an amazing, inspirational story. 

Documentary Short Film

All the Empty Rooms

Armed Only with a Camera

Children No More: Were and Are Gone

The Devil Is Busy

Perfectly a Strangeness

Our vote in this category is going to All the Empty Rooms, a film that “Follows news correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they embark on a seven-year-long project to document the empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings.” - IMDb

As a former educator, each and every school shooting and subsequent movie about them hits close to home. 

I did the ALICE drills. I did a lot of them. 

This was an exceptional film that centers on the aftermath of the unfortunately now commonplace school shooting.

I give credit to the parents that allowed Hartman and Bopp to enter their homes and photograph their dead children’s bedrooms, most of which have remained untouched. 

The film doesn’t touch on the issue of guns in the country or how we need to do more to help our people with mental health issues.

It simply lets the images of these dead children’s rooms speak for themselves. 

Films like this are not easy to watch, but the hope is that they raise awareness in some way that will lead to changes in how we can make things better, and safer, in the future. 

International Feature Film

The Secret Agent (Brazil)

It Was Just an Accident (France)

Sentimental Value (Norway)

Sirat (Spain)

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

Two of these international features, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value, were also nominated for Best Picture which seems to be a trend, and I have no problem with that at all. 

I enjoyed both of those films, but Cinema Wellman’s vote in this category went to the Tunisian film The Voice of Hind Rajab.

IMDb: “Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A six-year-old girl is trapped in a car under IDF fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her.”

This is not a documentary, but it is a true story that feels like one. 

The emergency call used in the film is the audio of the actual call that Hind Rajab made. The story is constructed around that call using actors as the Red Crescent workers. 

Needless to say, this was a harrowing story that hammers home the point of how war kills innocent people, including children, every day.

The hoops these workers had to jump through trying to get an ambulance to a six-year-old girl in a shot up car surrounded by her dead family is maddeningly frustrating. 

I’m really hoping this wins, so more people see it. 

Animated Feature Film

Arco

Elio

KPop Demon Hunters

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

Zootopia 2

Let me begin by saying I absolutely loved Zootopia 2, but you just cannot deny all that is the KPop Demon Hunters!

A K-Pop girl group with secret identities as demon hunters?!?

A killer soundtrack and pro-girl message?!

Derpy and Sussie?!?

Yes, yes, and yes!

Along with our vote for Animated Feature.

Casting

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sinners

I have to be totally honest and say that I don’t understand this category. 

Unless it was created just to honor every movie Wes Anderson makes going forward.

If you go by acting nominations, One Battle After Another should win this since it received four, with Sinners right behind with three.

Cinema Wellman’s vote went to Hamnet because I thought Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal were perfect as Agnes and Will Shakespeare.

So, is it the number of people in the cast, or can you win this with just two characters that were perfectly cast?

Hopefully time will tell. For now, I don’t understand what they’re looking for.

And this new category came out of the blue. Remember when we were promised a stunt category?

Never happened. 

Film Editing

F1

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Sinners is a close second choice, but our vote went to F1 because I’m a fan of F1 and the racing sequences in this film were extremely well done and captured the essence of an actual race.

There is so much happening at the same time during an F1 race, I really have no idea how they can announce it on the telecasts.

Production Design

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners

This has historically been one of my favorite categories because I’m one of those people that is constantly checking out the background while I’m watching a movie.

With the great ones, everything you see in the background is put there on purpose, and I absolutely love that attention to detail.

It was one of the things I was most fascinated with while I worked on set at The Arborist.

Our vote went to Frankenstein whose production design and set decoration brought the gothic in a big way.

If it’s a Guillermo del Toro film, everyone on the production has a keen attention to detail. 

One of the things that make his movies special. 

Sound

F1

Frankenstein

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Sirat

I never really know what to do when it comes to this category since I don’t know that much about the art of capturing sound/mixing it with other sounds/and putting that on film. 

Hats off to you, but I’m not the best judge of what you do.

That being said, Cinema Wellman voted for F1 since we saw it in IMAX, and I felt like the race was going on in my head.

I realize the award is for “Sound” and not “Volume,” but I stand by all of my votes. 

Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash

F1

Jurassic World Rebirth

The Lost Bus

Sinners

I didn’t think much of the film, but I was impressed by the fire effects in The Lost Bus. 

No idea how they made that look so realistic. 

Since there was no Godzilla movie to enthusiastically vote for this year, our vote went to Sinners, who also had some fire effects of their own. 

So tired of the Jurassic Park movies, by the way. Enough already. 

Cinematography

Frankenstein

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Train Dreams

If you tune in tomorrow for our Best Picture Rundown episode, you’ll hear more about the movie we cast our vote for in this category.

Train Dreams was an unexpected treat that was beautifully shot by Adolpho Veloso in majestic Washington state. 

The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest is expertly captured by Veloso. 

My father would have loved this film for the scenery, and the trains. 

Big scenery and train guy, Ray was. 

Actor

Timothee Chalamet - 3rd (Marty Supreme)

Leonardo DiCaprio - 7th (1W) (One Battle After Another)

Ethan Hawke - 3rd (Blue Moon)

Michael B. Jordan - 1st (Sinners)

Wagner Moura - 1st (The Secret Agent)

First of all, shut the hell up Timothee. Stop weighing in on art forms that have been around for four or five hundred years. Nobody cares what you think about anything, really.

For someone who loves movies so much, I am SO anti-celebrity and everything that goes with whatever that means.

I have no use for any of that. 

Shut up and make your movies. If you want to talk about movies, go ahead. I’m not interested in anything else you have to say about anything. 

And you made a movie about PING PONG, Timothee! Go away.

That pissed me off so much.

Our vote went to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, and I hope he wins and salutes opera and ballet in his acceptance speech. 

Director

Chloe Zhao - 2nd (1W) (Hamnet)

Josh Safdie - 1st (Marty Supreme)

Paul Thomas Anderson - 4th (One Battle After Another)

Joachim Trier - 1st (Sentimental Value)

Ryan Coogler - 1st (Sinners)

A few side tidbits about these directors before the vote is cast. 

*Chloe Zhao’s Oscar win was for Nomadland

*Josh Safdie has 4 Oscar nominations - ALL for this film

*Paul Thomas Anderson now has 14 total Oscar nominations

And

*Ryan Coogler now has 5 total Oscar nominations 

I was all set to vote for Chloe Zhao for Hamnet, but I changed course recently and thought I’d praise a director for a movie I thought was too ambitious at first.

After a second screening, I still think that, but I’m ready to give credit to the director for attempting such a far-reaching project.

Cinema Wellman’s vote went to Ryan Coogler for Sinners. 

Actress

Jessie Buckley - 2nd (Hamnet)

Rose Byrne - 1st (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You)

Kate Hudson - 2nd (Song Sung Blue)

Renate Reinsve - 1st (Sentimental Value)

Emma Stone - 5th (2W) (Bugonia)

Emma Stone is the real deal, no doubt about that. And I love the projects that she continues to take since many of them are far from the mainstream.

And Jessie Buckley was fabulous as Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet. The scene where she attends a performance of Hamlet and realizes what it’s really about and she stands there and watches as the tears stream down her face…. stunning!

That being said, we voted for a performance that pretty much ripped our guts out.

We voted for Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it, but be warned that it is not an easy watch by any means.

IMDb on If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: “While trying to manage her own life and career, a woman on the verge of a breakdown must cope with her daughter’s illness, an absent husband, a missing person, and an unusual relationship with her therapist.”

Skillfully directed by Mary Bronstein, this film, and especially Byrne’s performance, will definitely have an emotional impact on you.

I thought about Byrne’s performance for days afterward, which is always a good sign for me of a movie that “seeped into my soul” in a way.

And that leaves us with one category to go, which is the biggie.

Best Picture

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Train Dreams

As I mentioned at the open, tomorrow’s episode will feature our “Best Picture Rundown” and we will actually rank all 10 (too many) solely by our enjoyment of them and nothing else.

That’s just the way we do things here at Cinema Wellman.

We hope you join us tomorrow, and until then, take care.