Completed Category: Adapted Screenplay

 Well, I finally saw The Zone of Interest.  And it was a giant disappointment. But I completed four more categories, so there's that.  Guess we'll start here. 

I will be perfectly content if any of three of these films win, and if either of the other two win, I will throw Things at the Zone of the television. 

AMERICAN FICTION: I read that Cord Jefferson is from Arizona! Bonus points to him. Also, he wrote a pretty good screenplay here. The ending is - an interesting choice. I know there are layers upon meta layers, but it still might put off a few people. And of course, some of the fresh wit of this comes from the Percival Everett book it adapted, which I also liked, while the major departures from the book (Boston, the manner of one character's death) I think served the film well, but were those his changes or changes by committee? Also a lot of what I loved about this film was the performances. In general I think this is a good, more-than-solid, A-minus, not quite my first choice. But lots of people will vote for it. 

BARBIE: And a lot of people will vote for this. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach wrote a fun and thoughtful screenplay - yes, based on something that already exists, for one more reminder for those who don't believe the Academy knows how its Original vs Adapted rules work - and Greta also famously directed it to a billion dollars at the box office but wasn't nominated for Directing. I think Barbie has a more than great shot at winning because of both of those things, the not being able to award Greta otherwise AND the fact that it was a good screenplay that saved moviegoing, at least for a little while. So, what's stopping it? 

OPPENHEIMER: Oh. That. Yeah. Oppenheimer was great, it is going to win some Oscars, and this might be one of them. But - Christopher Nolan adapted it from a book (and an actual real life), unlike, say, some of the other brilliant things that have emerged from his mind as Original over the years, which is not to say he didn't do wholly original and brilliant things with it, just that there's a different starting point. Also, more importantly, he will almost surely win Directing, and the film might win a whole lot of stuff, so this category could be where people back off from him and give Gerwig the prize since they're handsomely rewarding Nolan elsewhere. 

See? All three of those have a chance, and make for a super-interesting race.  Unlike...

POOR THINGS: Ugh.  Ugh times one million. Screenwriter Tony McNamara said, and I quote, that he hates "sex scenes for no reason."  Well, Tony, self-aware you are not. Perhaps even worse, he said that he was always failing English class in high school and could never get his head around grammar but wouldja look here, now he's a writer. Ugh. Every single thing about this movie is another check in the Ugh column for me. I know some people are going to vote for him because he wrote words for Bella the franken-baby-mind (discovering sex) and words for Bella the grown-up-mind (roaming around the world getting naked with more people), but my godz do I hope it's just a few people and that I don't have to throw (Poor) Things at the TV when this award is announced. 

THE ZONE OF INTEREST: Now this one is (Zone of) interesting here only because it's utterly baffling to think about how it could possibly garner votes for this category. First of all, it's honestly less of an adapted screenplay than Barbie. It didn't even keep the characters from Martin Amis' book! It took the title and premise and part of the setting and then created an entirely different (lack of) story. The book was a mess in many ways, but this didn't bother trying to improve on it, just said OK literary estate of Martin Amis, thanks for the premise, bye!  Secondly, though, what screenplay we have here is - not much. So it's not as if Jonathan Glazer went and wrote a different story; he wrote instead a kind of art project.  Now, we all know that I do not care for fever dream projects masquerading as cinematic narratives, so this did not work for me in the slightest. But I also think there are objectively major flaws, such as: what's happening here?! in the infrared sequences that come out of nowhere? if Grandma is going to make a stand can you at least tell us about it? can you in fact depict anything that happens at any point?  and what on earth are you trying to say with the ending - that we shouldn't have a museum?  Everything is so unclear but on top of that it's also boring. Was his take on the banality of evil that he could one-up everybody by making the most horrific shocking acts of humanity unfathomably dull?  Seriously, we know this is going to win International (Foreign) film and maybe Sound, but really don't think it's going to win here. 

I'm reluctant to even try to predict but ... who cares, this is all just my personal fever dream blog rantings anyway!  HA.

Order I want them to win: 
Barbie

Oppenheimer

American Fiction
<huge gap>
<chasm>
<the Grand Canyon>
<all of the fabric of space time>
tie for last: Poor Things and The Zone of Interest

Order I think they will win (MAYBE): 
Barbie
American Fiction
Oppenheimer
who cares