Maria Bakalova (Supporting Actress), Frances McDormand (Best Actress) and Promising Young Woman (best film). My last choice isn’t the most popular but then del Toro won in 2018 over Get Out* and even PYW puts The Shape of Water down in the shallow end, where it belongs.

Although I am pulling for Youn Yuh-jung it is a shame Amanda Seyfried won't be awarded for resuscitating the legacy of Marion Davies.

That’s not at all true. Fennell has specifically said she rewrote that ending because she wanted to show a realistic ending to Cassie’s story.

Nomadland is really good, but I prefer Minari and Lee Isaac Chung’s direction and script. What a beautiful, delicate, moving, understated portrait of family life, cultural assimilation, religion, and renewal, with nary a false note anywhere.

What makes it a mess?

It is almost definitely winning best original screenplay, so it would seem that the academy disagrees with you on that. Also, most critics i see think it deserves it.

That final scene was staggeringly awful though. Like a parody of an academy award moment from the 90's.

It’s the kind of movie that really does scream “academy award contender”. A court room drama. Period setting. An all-star cast. A comedian playing against type for a drama. A setting far enough back that we can feel safe. A big name actor chewing the scenery (I did really enjoy Frank Langella though). Lots of soaring…

Youn Yuh-jung gave my favourite performance of the year.

It’s beyond me how The Trial of the Chicago 7 even got a nom, but then Sorkin is exactly the kind of New York sensibility I don’t like. Was this movie supposed to be a comedy? It felt like it.

I really wanted to like Nomadland more than I did. It’s a solid flick, but I’m not huge on “vignette” flicks, and it seemed to get its fundamental message across in the first five minutes.

Watching it today, The Father really was a beautiful and devastating movie, anchored by an incredible cast. I knew nothing about it beforehand but the way it slowly drew me into the web of crazy moments of the ravages of age done through such hauntingly subtle ways was remarkable.

I dunno, I like Frances the *person* (well, as much as I can say that, not personally knowing her). But I admit I’ve never been blown away by her on film—I like her fine. But I also admit that a lot of that is simply that I don’t love the movies she’s starred in as much as most film fans seem to.

Tucci is great in…

Am I the only one who isn’t into the whole Frances McDormand thing?  Just one of those actors that I never got.  Stanley Tucci comes to mind as well.

You say that as if this review didn’t contain the line “Still, there was hope that, after all that, Lana Del Rey would make an album so mesmerizing that any controversy would be overshadowed by her artistry.”

Lana put out one certifiable classic album.

It’s weird to finally see music critics not fawning all over this sentient Instagram post.

From some of her comments this year I feel she doesn’t have anything too meaningful to say about 1950s except to romanticize it as a white woman.

I don’t know if she’s trying to critique it at all. She’s talked about wanting to make it ok for women to be delicate and beautiful. Which... uh... what?

This very white 1950s vibe is noxious. Maybe she’s trying to critique it. It’s been done. Leave it by the roadside with the cig butts you chucked out of your car.