Frankenstein - 9 nominations

 

Best Achievement in Cinematography: Dan Laustsen

Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: : Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, Cliona Furey

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score): Alexandre Desplat

Best Sound: Greg Chapman, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira, Christian T. Cooke, Brad Zoern

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, Scott Stuber

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Jacob Elordi

Best Adapted Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro

Best Achievement in Production Design: Tamara Deverell (production designer), Shane Vieau (set decorator)

Best Achievement in Costume Design: Kate Hawley

I thought I’d seen enough Frankensteins to last me a lifetime, so when Guillermo del Toro announced that this would be his new film, I was not excited. But knowing that GDT, who made Pan’s Labyrinth and other extraordinary genre reinventions, was at the helm, I was open to it.

This Frankenstein is a whole other narrative. The obsessive scientist who methodically puts together a human body and reenvisions how one could animate that body pieced together is a whole story in itself. Oscar Isaac’s brilliant portrayal of the man obsessed with solving a puzzle and his descent into madness is gut punching. The level of detail put into the human anatomy of the work gives the audience the feeling that this crazy idea could become reality.

That’s the first half of the film, though the story is not told in a linear way. But the second half of the story is through the eyes of Frankenstein’s creature himself and how being animated and being alive are two different things. We realize that it’s not just a question of just because you can doesn’t mean you should, it’s also the impossible question of now that you did, what’s next for now and for eternity? In every iteration of the monster genre, there is the moment before and the moment after and the binary is about alive and revived, but not really about being human. This new iteration is much more about becoming than being, and it completely changes the story to make it a richer, much more interesting tale. It’s the questions, not the answers, that makes this film so special.

Del Toro also makes the brilliant choice to connect the past to the present by filming in black and white, and that’s why the cinematography is so magnificent. It gives old world vibes while making a Frankenstein that is utterly new, utterly fresh, and completely worth your while - even if you are not a fan of this genre (which, as I mentioned, I am not). Every one of these 9 nominations is deserved, including the one for Jacob Elordi who gives Frankenstein’s creature the humanity I could never have anticipated - he what makes the whole film come together and work.

I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than it’s absolutely not what you are expecting when you sit down in front of a creation called Frankenstein.

Nosferatu - 4 nominations

 

• • Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

  • David White
  • Traci Loader
  • Suzanne Stokes-Munton
• 
  • Best Achievement in Cinematography

  • Jarin Blaschke
• • Best Achievement in Production Design

  • Craig Lathrop (production designer) 
  • Beatrice Brentnerova (set decorator)
• • Best Achievement in Costume Design

  • Linda Muir

Young Thomas has been sent to Transylvania to close a lucrative Real Estate deal by his employer. Leaving his young, beautiful wife Ellen at home, he discovers a creepy castle and an even creepier owner. He is aware that something odd is going on as he passes out and awakens with a bite mark, and each night as he dreams terrible dreams, he awakens with more bite marks in the morning. He insists on leaving, but not before the owner gets him to sign a contract in a foreign language that is presumably the land sale document. Though he questions if he should sign a document which he can't read, he also is lured by the commission he will earn and be able to take care of his beloved wife and make the couple rich.

Of course when he returns home, he realizes what he has done - he has signed a document nullifying his marriage opening the door for Nosferatu to join with Thomas' wife, and who Nosferatu has claimed as his own for decades. On the other hand, if his wife does not submit to the vampire willingly within three nights, it is made clear that Thomas will be killed. Ellen summons the vampire to her room, and tricks him into having sex with her and draining her blood until sunrise, killing Nosferatu with sunlight and herself in sacrifice for Thomas.

This is not my kind of movie and I'll bet if you go back into the blog history, you'll be hard pressed to find a single film of this genre that I liked. Not so with this one, it was gorgeously filmed and the story was so engaging that I liked it very much. I most certainly would not have seen it if not for the Oscar nominations, but that just teaches me a lesson that sometimes a good film is a good film, even when it comes in a package that I wouldn't normally open. I'm hardly opening my veins for the next vampire flick, but when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. This one was worth the view.

A Different Man - 1 nomination

 

• Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

• Michael Marino 
• David Presto 
• Crystal Jurado

Edward is an actor who lives with neurofibromitosis, a genetic condition which manifests in him with disfiguring facial features, the kind typified in The Elephant Man. He is used to being stared at, and he has created a full life though he has yet to find a lover who can accept him for who he is and not what he looks like. He takes an experimental drug which over time removes all of the skin and tumors leaving only the handsome face of Sebastian Stan. But Edward has trouble adapting to his new life, one that has him working as a very successful real estate broker, yet he is drawn back to the theater and to auditions, when he discovers that his only appeal as an actor is his old face. He doesn't quite know how to live, how to be in the world without the face and life experience that he knows well. The new look doesn't comfort him, it unnerves him. When he meets and befriends another actor with the same condition who seems to live in the world without shame, without judgement, he seems to question his whole life and his whole personality.

The film does a good job of playing on the title - is he a different man now that he has a new face and a new life? Are the two phases of his life separate so as to make his one identity two different identities? Does a man with the same condition but a vastly different life experience show him what he could have been had he been a different kind of man? While my husband referred to this as "The Substance but for men," the execution of the change and the commensurate challenges to one's identity make this film far more interesting and far less gross.

It's not for everyone and I wouldn't say that you MUST see this movie. But if you're willing to go on the journey with Edward to identify the core of identity, you might just like it. Or perhaps you would if you were a different... never mind.

The Substance - 5 nominations

 

• • Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

  • Pierre Olivier Persin 
  • Stéphanie Guillon 
  • Marilyne Scarselli
• 
  • Best Motion Picture of the Year

  • Coralie Fargeat 
  • Tim Bevan 
  • Eric Fellner
• 
  • Best Achievement in Directing

  • Coralie Fargeat
• 
  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

  • Demi Moore
• 
  • Best Original Screenplay

  • Coralie Fargeat

Well, I haven't exactly been panting to write this blog post. I saw the preview for this film and I thought it looked like a brilliant and scathing commentary on aging and fame. What I got was a horror movie with a basically interesting idea (though if you take one moment to think about it, the premise is deeply flawed) with a seriously questionable ending. 

The basic plot is that Demi Moore (who is pretty wonderful and who ironically looks amazing) is a middle aged former model and current fitness show star and her creepy boss/studio exec gives her notice that he is shutting down her show and tells her that she is no longer marketable because she is too old. She comes upon a handsome young man and his seemingly older counterpart who explains that they are same person and that they are taking a substance that gives back youth. She tracks down the "company" and begins a regimen. What they don't tell her is that she isn't going to go back in years and that a younger version of her is going to be birthed from her body and they will have to switch off one week at a time. (and for my taste, that scene... ew.)

The plot hole is that she doesn't know what happens in the weeks that she is lying dormant, and her younger twin doesn't know what she is doing while she is lying dormant. So, why would anyone recommend something that they themselves don't get to experience? Moore's character doesn't recapture her youth, the mutant she births does. She doesn't get to live a new younger life, she gets to lie on the floor being fed intravenously while her mutant lives the younger life. Why would anyone recommend this once the bait and switch has happened for the first person in the experiment?

At any rate, of course things don't go exactly to plan and the ending is possibly the only plausible one they could muster but I'm betting there are a bunch of act threes somewhere in a garbage can. Many people are raving about this film and it has a more than decent chance of winning this prize. My only theory is perhaps they watched the movie while on substances of their own.

Wicked - 10 nominations

 

• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

  • Frances Hannon 
  • Laura Blount 
  • Sarah Nuth
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

  • John Powell 
  • Stephen Schwartz
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Sound

  • Simon Hayes 
  • Nancy Nugent Title 
  • Jack Dolman 
  • Andy Nelson 
  • John Marquis
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Visual Effects

  • Pablo Helman 
  • Jonathan Fawkner 
  • David Shirk 
  • Paul Corbould
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Motion Picture of the Year

  • Marc Platt
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

  • Cynthia Erivo
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

  • Ariana Grande
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Film Editing

  • Myron Kerstein
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Production Design

  • Nathan Crowley (production designer)
  • Lee Sandales (set decorator)
• 
  2025 Nominee Oscar

  • Best Achievement in Costume Design

  • Paul Tazewell

"Oh, what a celebration we'll have today! Thank goodness!"

What if we could go back in time and learn how the Wicked Witch of the West became so reviled and renowned? That's the story of Wicked Part 1 when Elphaba and Glinda are paired together at Shiz University and shenanigans unfold. Glinda is popular and beautiful, Elphaba is studious and different, that is to say, green. And while normal maneuverings at school and normal love triangles abound, there is also a populist movement against talking animals; maligning them and making people fear them as the enemy. (hmmm, totally unrealistic, of course). Elphaba doesn't want to be different, much like most people, but also doesn't want to admit that she is troubled by her difference. When the head mistress takes a special in her interest as a practitioner of magic, Elphaba is invited to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz who lives in the Emerald City. Having now developed a friendship with Glinda, she invites her friend to come along and off the two go to meet the wizard.

I'm a huge fan of the musical (and for the love of God, would somebody please give Marc Platt his do over Oscar? Haven't you bothered this guy enough???) Back to the musical - if you know it, if you love it, if you have trouble sitting quietly in the theater and not singing along with the songs, you're going to absolutely love this film! But more than that, seeing it on screen brought to life two concepts from the stage that I had overlooked.

First, there's the trip to the Emerald City where everything is green. it hit me watching the magnificent costumes and production design that Elphaba's visit to the city is the first time in her life that she fits in more than the popular girl. She has come to the land of green, where green is keen (sorry, I couldn't resist) and it is everywhere. I know the movie sprinkled in tiny bits of pink into the Emerald City, but that choice showed even more how Glinda and her pink personality didn't quite fit in the hallowed city as much as Elphaba does. I can imagine both overwhelmed by the new feelings - fitting in for one, sticking out for the other.

The other revelation is how many plays on good, goodness, bad disguised as good, good disguised as bad - the themes are literally spread throughout the entire movie. If you've seen it already, go back and watch or go back and listen to the soundtrack. Almost every use of the word good has multiple meanings, "I have been changed for good." Does that mean I have been changed in a good way, or does that mean I have been changed permanently? Or both? Even the line I opened this post with - Thank Goodness! Is that, "thank the one who is representing good (Glinda)," is it "thank the state of being good," or just the plain old "phew!" This show is riddled with these suckers, and watching the movie again was a pleasure for all of the new discoveries that await even the longest time fan of the show. (or, good God, maybe just me... oh! There's another one!)

See this film for goodness sake! (That's another one... is it, "for the sake of goodness" or is it "gosh darn it!" OK I'LL STOP NOW.)