I need to speed things up with those Oscar posts because February 9th is approaching rapidly. Today I bring you a very quick list of my preferences in three categories that are all about the look of the film. Sadly, it becomes clear that in all the Best Picture-adjacent categories I simply do not care about the nominees that much. I do not feel particularly strongly about anything here.
Best Cinematography
5. Joker, Lawrence Sher
4. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Robert Richardson
3. 1917, Roger Deakins
2. The Irishman, Rodrigo Prieto
1. The Lighthouse, Jarin Blaschke
This is the film I truly want to win because the look of The Lighthouse is absolutely extraordinary. It should have been nominated for so much more.
Best Visual Effects
5. The Lion King, Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones & Elliot Newman
I know the technology is impressive but it ended up being really spooky when the animals looked like actual lions but were made to say Disney jokes.
4. The Irishman, Pablo Helman, Leandro Estebecorena, Nelson Sepulveda & Stephane Grabli
The de-aging technology was much better than I expected but there were still some weird moments when you could tell: „that’s an old man”.
3. Avengers: Endgame, Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Matt Aitken & Dan Sudick
2. 1917, Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler & Dominic Tuohy
1. Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker, Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach & Dominic Tuohy
Well, at least it looked cool.
Best Production Design
5. 1917, Lee Sandales & Dennis Gassner
4. Jojo Rabbit, Nora Sopková & Ra Vincent
3. The Irishman, Regina Graves & Bob Shaw
2. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Nancy Haigh & Barbara Ling
1. Parasite, Woo-Woo Cho & Ha-jun Lee
Swingin' at the Seance 