The Snubby Awards: 2022 Oscars

It's that time again: The Snubby Awards!  For those of you who don't know, the Snubby Awards take a look at all of the Best Picture nominees from a given year and determine if the best film won or if one was snubbed.  If that's the case, they win the coveted Snubby Award!

This time we'll be taking a look at the 2022 Oscars, which was a very mixed bag.  There were a couple I loved and a few I didn't care for at all.  The nominees were: Belfast, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, and West Side Story with the winner being CODA.  Did CODA deserve to win or did another movie get snubbed?  Let's find out!

#10. Licorice Pizza

While this was a really well made and well acted film, especially Bradley Cooper's incredible performance, I found this movie creepy and uncomfortable and it wasn't supposed to be.  This movie is a love story set in the 70's featuring a 25-year old woman and a 15-year old boy.  The movie even mentions that this is illegal, but the movie chugs along with it anyway.  I know some people were able to get over that and enjoy the movie anyway, but I couldn't.  I was just too grossed out.  This is just a movie I wish didn't exist.

 4/10: Bad 

#9. Drive My Car

I can understand why people like Drive My Car, but I am not the target audience for this.  I don't have the greatest attention span in the world and this movie is a three hour film about a theater director getting over the death of his wife.  It takes her about 45 minutes to kick the bucket.  I remember checking how much time had gone by and groaned.  There are slow movies that I like, but I really need to be hooked by something to get me to care about a three hour movie or a drama, let alone both.  This one just wasn't for me.

 5/10: Meh 

#8. West Side Story

This is another really well made movie and I really dig the aesthetic.  By all accounts, this is a good adaptation of the play.  I think I just don't like the story of West Side Story.  I don't think it matters if it's in stage or on film.  I know it's based on Romeo and Juliet, which I've never read, but I don't think I would like it either.  The characters are beyond stupid to a frustrating and unbelievable level.  I just don't buy that these characters would fall in love and want to run away together in one day.  With this subject matter, there's a better and more interesting way to tell this story.  Like I said, this is a good adaptation, but the source material sucks.

 5/10: Meh 

#7. Nightmare Alley

I really enjoyed the first half of this movie.  I loved the carnival setting and watching Bradley Cooper learn all the tips and tricks was a lot of fun.  Plus we get Willem Dafoe playing an absolute scumbag, which you love to see.  The problem comes in the 2nd half, where the movie becomes a lot more melodramatic.  I just wasn't interested in Cooper's relationship with Cate Blanchette or their con of Richard Jenkins.  It never engaged and found myself wishing we could go back to the carnival.  Again, this is another well made movie and it's a remake that sticks fairly close to the original.  I suspect I wouldn't like the original much either.

 5/10: Meh 

#6. The Power of the Dog

I at least liked the rest of these movies.  The Power of the Dog is a drama/western that I think I will like a lot more on the rewatch.  It's basically watching Benedict Cumberbatch be a jerk to people.  It does take awhile for the movie to get interesting beyond that.  It's a strange movie because you really have no idea where the story is going.  The final reveal is pretty awesome and I imagine it's more satisfying on the rewatch, but on my initial viewing it took way too long for it to click for me.

 6/10: Okay 

#5. Dune

This may be a hot take, but I like David's Lynch's Dune a lot more than this one.  Granted, I recognize that this is a far superior movie.  It's a lot more comprehensible than Lynch's and definitely more audience friendly.  There's a lot to like here and I really enjoyed this version.  That said, watching Lynch's version was such a fun and memorable experience for me.  It's so weird and a puzzle to figure out.  I loved watching it for the first time and trying to piece together what was happening.  This version didn't have the same effect and it definitely loses some steam near the end.

 8/10: Really Good 

#4. King Richard

This is pretty straightforward biopic, a genre I like less and less as the years go on.  I don't really care about tennis and I wasn't super interested in watching this movie.  That said, Will Smith does a fantastic job and really captured my interested.  He brought the human and emotional elements to the role and a story which made me care about what happened and about tennis.  The 3rd act made me angry, but it a good way.  You're supposed to be angry.  This one surpassed my expectations for sure.

 8/10: Really Good 

#3. Belfast

I love the aesthetic of Belfast.  It's a black and white movie that occasionally throws in some color for an astounding effect, but mostly I like this movie because it reminds me of stories my older relatives have told me.  They didn't deal with the Troubles or anything, but the vibes of the movie remind me of listening to stories my relatives used to tell.  It's a comforting feeling.  I also found the religious persecution in the story fascinating and the fact that something as big as the Troubles is shown to us from the perspective of a child.  It's really interesting.  Plus we get some absolutely incredible performances from Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, and Judi Dench.  To me, this movie is like a warm blanket.

 9/10: Great 

And now for the final 2 films in no particular order.

CODA

The Best Picture winner is about a high school girl who can hear, but her parents and brother are all deaf.  She ends up taking a choir class and discovers a passion for singing that her family can't understand.  I love this movie.  It's got interesting conflict and some great representation for deaf actors and characters.  The family is very blue collar, which is something I haven't seen much of when it comes to deaf characters.  And the conflict between the family is painful because they all love each other, but the communication is hard to accomplish.  It's a wonderful and effective story and one of my favorites of the year.

 10/10: Amazing 

Don't Look Up

This probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a live-action South Park film.  I love South Park and satire in general, even if it can be painful to watch at times when it gets a little too real.  My experience watching Don't Look Up was pain.  It's one of the most painful movies I've ever sat through.  It's a satire of what our society would do if a world-ending comet heading towards the Earth.  This movie just barely counts as satire as far as I'm concerned and hits way too close to home.  This movie hurt to watch and I think that's what they were going for.  I don't know if I could ever sit through this movie again and that's one of the highest compliments I can give a film.  '

 10/10: Amazing 

And the Snubby Award goes to...!

Don't Look Up!  It was a tough race.  Don't Look Up and CODA are my two favorite movies of 2021, but I ultimately gave it to Don't Look Up because it emotionally affected me more.  It pretty much ruined the rest of my day after I watched it.  Plus I'm a sucker for some good satire, even when it hurts.  I do believe it was snubbed, but I'm not mad at all that CODA won.

Next time we'll be looking at the 2004 Oscars.  Did The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King deserve to win or did another movie get snubbed?  Stay tuned!