The nOscars 2024 (no.6)
Here's to the ones who dream, looking at you, kid, etc!
Welcome to what I pray to be a recurring bit on Rent’s Due: The First Annual Legally-Unaffiliated-from-the-Academy-of-Arts-Sciences nOscar Awards! A celebration of the best films from the previous year that didn’t get the mass-publicity it deserved. Please subscribe if you like what you see, and get your girl to share with others if they feel so inclined! Okay let’s go.
When I set out to make this newsletter, one of the biggest things that excited me was getting to write content that I would’ve never been approved for in my previous publications. One such idea was coming up with an awards piece that focused on the best films that did not get nominated for any Oscars this year, hence the name “nOscars” (which funnily enough I couldn’t find another site that used that term before, so yay for me ig). The purpose for the nOscars isn’t much as to reward the best films that I saw last year (despite on the surface being very much that), but mostly to shine a light on films that I think get lost in the shuffle during awards season, or even when people scramble to make their best of 2023 lists.
Sure, some of these films have a huge following that’ll continue to grow over the years, but there will always be this notion from certain people where they’ll discard most films if they weren’t nominated for anything as prestigious as The Oscars (whatever that means for them now). And yes, I know my voice and work is very small rn in the grand scheme of things, but if I could get at least *one* person to check out a film that I think deserves more love, than I would’ve done my job and be happy with that. So: here’s (hopefully) that. Maybe these picks will be more satisfying for you than it’ll be with tonight’s telecast lol.
Coolest Tunes Award
Winner: The Killer
I think with time people will look at David Fincher’s The Killer as one of the biggest mistakes of the streaming age. Not because it’s bad (it’s fucking fantastic. I, too love The Smiths, and a lil’ Reznor/Ross!), but because every moment captured on screen would’ve been easily cleared anything else that was playing in the theater if they actually played it in theaters. I knew this was going to be the winner when the first time I heard “How Soon is Now?” play, as the constant back-and-forth between the intoxicating guitar strings playing at full volume and harshly muffled inside Michael Fassbender’s earphones as he sets up the best punchline in ages, made me want to jump out of my seat and mosh with the three other people at my screening. It’s better than the sick industrial curation in BlackBerry, the Justice needledrop in John Wick 4, and maybe less thematic than the karaoke in Fallen Leaves, but that soundtrack is a nigh-perfect mesh of sight and sound, and you can’t put a banger like that in a corner.
Honorable Mentions: BlackBerry, John Wick: Chapter 4, Fallen Leaves
Best Fucking Shit (w/ Hardcoded Words) of 2023
Winner: The First SLAM DUNK
Let’s get this straight: I fucking hate basketball. Idk why, but it’s always made me bored or disappointed, no matter how many Mario characters I can play in my copy of NBA Street V3. But for some reason I really love media that’s about basketball. I think it’s easy to forget about what the players might be thinking about when they go through a typical season game, so when Takehiko Inoue made that the basis for his first feature film The First SLAM DUNK (also an adaptation of his classic shonen manga), it’s hard to not be invested in *anything* going on. Granted, that approach was always evident in the manga, but I didn’t know that, let alone being this investing. For those kids in their last high school game, this shit means everything to them. It means everything to Ryota Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura), a supporting character from the series, now taking center stage here, as he’s doing everything he can to prove to himself and the memory of his late brother that he can overcome his challenges and help his team win gold. I just talked about how sound can enriche the experience you have with a film, but its can also work the other way seen here, where the lack of sound in certain moments give immense weight to what is at the moment the most important shit I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t want to give much away about First Slam Dunk, just please go out and see it, and with subs because you’re not a baby.
Honorable Mentions: Shin Kamen Rider, Fallen Leaves, Suzume
Your Dad’s Favorite Movie of 2023*
Winner: Evil Dead Rise
This award is simple: Most of the films I watch are with my dad. He usually doesn’t like the ones I put on, so the very few I put on that he actually likes are ones that I take more notice in. You’re probably wondering why there isn’t a Your Mom’s Favorite Movie of 2023, and that’s because she doesn’t like movies! She’s been on a turkish dub phase of soap operas on YouTube. Idk why but the women in my family eat that shit up.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to talk about Evil Dead Rise for a sec. I think Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have done great things with letting up-and-coming filmmakers make their own fucked-up spin on the franchise. As someone who wanted more like the 2013 remake, and for another person (my dad) who just wanted more gory fun shit to watch like the time we spent watching Ash vs. Evil Dead, Rise does that in spades. It’s also pretty hard to not like this if you know about the final deadite reveal (won’t spoil here) but fuck was it such a cool way to build up to that. Out of all the films I texted my dad about in preparation for this category, this was the only one he responded to in the middle of work with a resounding “evil dead”.
Honorable Mentions: AIR, V/H/S/85, John Wick: Chapter 4
* My Dad’s Favorite Movie of 2023
Best YouTube Shorts Film of 2023
Winner: V/H/S/85
Like most things in life, this category’s a work-in-progress. I admittedly didn’t catch many shorts last year. I saw Once Upon a Studio mostly because I wanted to see if Scrooge McDuck was there, and out of nostalgia I liked it because it was basically that to me. V/H/S/85, on the other hand, was something I was really looking forward to because of my odd affection towards V/H/S/99 (seriously it’s way better than people make it out to be). Like most short anthologies, it’s typically a mixed bag on what you fucked with more than the other, but with 85 I had something to love from each and every segment. I loved Dreamkill and how gnarly the ending sequence was, and thought Total Copy was fine for a the framing story bookending the movie, while TKNOGD and God of Death had the best visual effects that you wouldn’t expect to get with a low-budget project like this. The best shorts though, No Wake and Ambrosia, had such a satisfying payoff that caught me completely off-guard. It’s the kind of needle-threading shit I hope more anthologies do in the future, and why I love the inventive ideas going on in the V/H/S movies in the first place. I promise myself I’ll watch more shit to justify keeping this section.
Honorable Mention/Tie ig?: Once Upon a Studio
Best ‘secret movie’ Movie of 2023
Winner: Saw X
Basically, a “secret movie” to me is when you go in expecting one thing heading into a film, and walk out having watched something that was way different than you’d expect. You see it in the sudden twist V/H/S/88 takes halfway through, or when you realize that Infinity Pool is mostly played off as a dark comedy about rich people that are addicted to doing fucked up shit starring a human, albeit-hornier Brian Griffin (Alexander Skarsgård). I went into Saw X expecting more of the same ol’ wacky gore-porn the series is known for, but what I didn’t expect it to be this kind of inverted horror drama about a serial killer who turns out to be the hero of our story. You still get a little bit(!) of the gore you’re used to, but X quickly became one of the best surprises I had in theater, with it stealthily being this ironic anti-grifter fantasy thriller. If there’s any film I would unironically call based, it’s Saw X.
Honorable Mentions: Infinity Pool, V/H/S/85, A Haunting in Venice
The Most Moving Drawing of 2023
Winner: The First SLAM DUNK
Okay I’ll say another thing about First SLAM DUNK. I always thought the franchise mainly revolved around Hanamichi, the red-haired protagonist that’d be easy to spot in a lineup of shonen MCs. First SLAM DUNK does this thing I love in media where the person you’re following is actually one of the least-explored characters in the cast (Ryota), while still letting you know that the main guy is very much a part of the plot. It’s like if you told A New Hope today from the perspective of Han Solo, while Luke still gets away with all the big hero moments you’d expect from it. Cool subversion, good movie.
Honorable Mentions: The Inventor, Suzume, Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
The writ-gud Award
Winner: BlackBerry
There’s a simplicity in Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller’s script for BlackBerry that could’ve easily been told the same tired way we’ve seen in countless biopics before. Humble beginnings, sudden conflict, terrible downfall, and credits. Johnson and Miller follow that exact formula here, but it’s in their darkly hilarious, explicitly-Canadian tone that made BlackBerry stand out from the crowd. There were a lot of certified great fucking scripts this year, from Andrew Kevin Walker’s use of that badass-sounding mantra in The Killer, the heady morality William Friedkin holds accountable in his last hurrah during The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and the full-circle moments of Schultz-isms found in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. But the more I think about how hyper-focused the writing in BlackBerry was in telling a strong three-act tragedy, the more I get pissed that it didn’t get that extra push to be seen by more people with an Oscar nom. More to say about it later, but to summerize: yes, it wrot very gud.
Honorable Mentions: The Killer, Asteroid City, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
She’s So Good Award (friend edition)
Winner: Penelope Cruz - Ferrari
Dude how did this get fucking snubbed lmfao. I didn’t know much about Ferrari going in aside from it starring Adam Driver and being a fucking Michael Mann movie, and I came away enjoying most of it. There were times where I thought the melodrama felt more akin to Heat than I expected, to the point where I’m watching it and couldn’t stop thinking “Damn this feels like these guys really want to do Heat 2 instead.” However, the more I started to think less about the movie, the more I also started thinking about how great Penelope Cruz was in it. Yes, it’s that tired trope of “I didn’t see Penelope all I saw was Laura!”, but that goes to show you how quickly she eats everyone’s lunch with each scene she’s in. Laura’s put in this complex position that’s often more fascinating than Enzo’s himself, where she has to both run the company alongside her cheating husband as well as continue to live in a world where her child, their heir apparent, is dead and the child he has with another woman is practically itching to know more about the business. It makes for a powerful that shows more than tells you everything, and fuck I’m still gonna be mad about this.
Honorable Mentions: Alyssa Sutherland - Evil Dead Rise, Mia Goth - Infinity Pool (Mia), Pom Klementieff - Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning
He’s So Good Award (friend edition)
Winner: Glenn Howerton - BlackBerry
Fuck it here’s two clips of Howerton in this. Sky’s the limit for the man.
Honorable Mention: Janne Hyytiäinen - Fallen Leaves, Jude Hill - A Haunting in Venice, Donnie Yen - John Wick: Chapter 4
She’s So Good Award
Winner: Cailee Spaeny - Priscilla
It must be tricky to visually convey how boring life would be if you were married to Elvis Presley, but Cailee Spaeny aced it like it was nothing. The way I would compare her performance early on in Priscilla is like we were watching the end of a classic Disney movie, where you get this level of giddiness and naiveté from a (15 y/o) girl who’s so excited to be taken away by her famous knight in shining armor (Jacob Elordi, also good). Only for the princess to quickly find out that she’s stuck in another shitty predicament once again, having to live this dolled-up fake life of being *something* in Elvis’ life despite how little he truly cares for her. There’s a vulnerability and melancholic aura in Spaeny’s performance that still stuck with me long after watching it, so good on her for being able to get there in showing the oft-neglected side of music history. It’s just one of those turns that’s gonna be very hard for whoever has to play Priscilla next to measure up with.
Honorable Mentions: Sophie Wilde - Talk to Me, Thomasin McKenzie - Eileen, Alma Pöysti - Fallen Leaves
He’s So Good Award
Winner: Zac Efron - The Iron Claw
When it came to early Oscar predictions, this was a big lock-in for a lot of people, and still rightfully so. Not only did Efron put on the gains to look fantastic in the ring, he got the chance to play off the true story of a wrestling dynasty that just crumbled into a horrible series of deaths. For as much shit people like to give on the Ric Flair scene, what really works is that moment when Kevin von Erich just loses his fucking shit at Flair mid-match. All the pent up frustration in being put on the back-burner of getting a big push, keeping the lights on in a promotion slowly cowering at the might of the WWF, and his poor brothers who’ve succumb to death or horrific injury was all colliding in Efron’s face in that scene, impressively bearing all the emotional weight that his character had already gone through. It’s almost as if the film was going to remix history again and have Kevin actually kill Flair here, which is followed by a funny exchange by Aaron Dean Eisenberg where he’s almost happy to have gotten such a beatdown. I loved Zac Efron in this. Idk what else to add here just watch it.
Honorable Mentions: Tobin Bell - Saw X, Dave Bautista - Knock at the Cabin, Michael Fassbender - The Killer
Best direc-gud Award
Winner: Chad Stahelski - John Wick: Chapter 4
There is a ton of patience and planning when it comes to making a film, and I only know that from working in the mines of student films and more-indie-than-indies. The weight in having to do the same thing in what feels like 100x the scale is a skill that’s obviously rare to find. What Chad Stahelski was able to get away with in the last three John Wick films was already incredible, so to scale that up even *higher* with the action sequences in Chapter 4 would be like beating God, reviving Him, and beating Him again on New Game+. But he did, and it ruled! In the past couple years I started to get into the films of Albert Pyun and how inspiring it was to see all the practical stunts he and his team were able to achieve. When I think of a modern example to someone like Pyun, the only one that I think has any solid validity in that comparison would be Stahelski. It’s insane that he topped a gun-toting horse race in the streets with a straight-up Hotline Miami level recreation, but again, he did! Hard to compete with that!
Honorable Mentions: Ari Aster - Beau is Afraid, Daniel Goldhaber - How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Sean Durkin - The Iron Claw
The Best Fucking Shit of 2023
Winner: BlackBerry
Hey did you know that I loved BlackBerry? I’ve been a little annoying about it. Matt Johnson made a really funny and really sad story about a group of plucky nerds that got corrupted by corporate. Dudes with either no baggage or lots of it hustling their way into saving their company from getting a hostile takeover, only for their own greed to get in the way of what made RIM Ltd. so special to them in the first place. Just watch it, I can only give so much praise to my first big picture nOscar. It will make you feel things for a Canadian that you’ve never felt before.
Honorable Mentions: The Killer, Saw X, The First SLAM DUNK