Helga without the H

Every year* I attempt (with varying degrees of success and effort) to watch as many of that year’s Oscar nominees as possible. For the past few years* I’ve posted reviews of these movies here on this blog. At some point before the awards ceremony, I usually write up some sort of over-analysis and maybe some predictions. This, ladies and gentleman, is that over-analysis and predictions post. I welcome all four of you to….

The 2024 Official Helga Without the H Oscar Binge Predictions and Analysis Post!

First up, below is a list (with links to the full reviews) of the nominated films I saw, (very) roughly in order of my enjoyment. They are divided into “IS SALTBURN” and “IS NOT SALTBURN” categories. If you didn’t read my Saltburn review and are confused on what this is about, you should read my Saltburn review. But if you can’t be bothered, in short: I loved the film Saltburn and was upset it didn’t get any Oscar nominations. So for this year’s reviews, to determine if it was actually worthy of an Oscar nomination or not, I rated them based on the sole criteria of “is it Saltburn?” (*Best pictures are indicated with an asterisk.)

IS SALTBURN
Poor Things*
The Zone of Interest*
Saltburn (not actually nominated)
The Holdovers*
Society of Snow
Past Lives* (should be down below Maestro based on personal enjoyment, but has to remain in “Is Saltburn” section.)

NOT SALTBURN
Barbie*
Oppenheimer*
American Fiction*
Nyad
Rustin
Maestro*
El Conde
The Color Purple
May December
Killers of the Flower Moon*
Anatomy of a Fall*
Napoleon

This list includes every film in best picture, all acting, all writing, editing, directing, cinematography, production design, and costume design categories. It also depicts every film with 3 or more nominations. I did not see any documentaries, shorts, or animations. That leaves music categories and sound/effects categories partially-watched.

A note on the Saltburn thing: I think folks may have taken this a bit literally. I had multiple people say to me something along the lines of “I saw your favorite movie. It, uh… wasn’t as great as everyone says.” Look, dudes, I’m not actually saying Saltburn is the greatest masterpiece of our time or anything like that. I’m just saying I really liked it. I would bet that, if I re-watched it now, I might not even rate it as being Saltburn on the “Is it Saltburn?” scale. At this point, maybe it’s a bit too hyped up, including by folks like me, which means it can never live up to said hype. It was just a bit of cheeky fun, and a different angle for evaluating the nominees. Note that there are two other films that I actually think were better than Saltburn: Poor Things, which was INSANELY GOOD, and Zone of Interest, which I didn’t actually enjoy more (how can one enjoy the Auschwitz movie?) but that I admit is better. And there are several other films I acknowledged as being just as good. Plus films in the Not Saltburn category that weren’t as good, but that I still liked. Don’t read too much into it. Last year’s big snub was Bullet Train after all.

Next up, it’s time for…

The Official Helga Without the H Oscar Awards

These are “awards” I make up every year, some of which repeat, from year to year, and some of which don’t.

Biggest Winner: Old Guys Playing Young Guys
We’ve got Robert DeNiro playing a dude 2 decades his junior in Killers of the Flower Moon, and Joaquin Phoenix playing a dude 2 decades his junior in Napoleon, both for no perceivable reason and both to the detriment of the film. We’ve also got Ryan Gosling playing Ken in Barbie. Now, Ken is a doll, and nobody knows how old said doll is supposed to actually be. But there was a whole bunch of internet buzz before the film came out where some folks complained that Gosling is too old to play the heartthrob. I don’t have a personal opinion about this one, but apparently other people did. Congrats, old guys; you’ve finally made it!

Biggest Loser: Sobfests
Maybe it’s just me, but I found this year’s films significantly less depressing than usual. Maybe it’s because I didn’t watch any of the animated films for kids (in 2021 I observed that almost every single kids’ movie featured a dead or lost parent, FFS). There was still plenty of serious fare this year, and some very, very real contemplations about the worst cruelties of man (Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest, etc.). But these didn’t have me weeping; they were more of a gut-punch. Furthermore, plenty of films that explored serious topics were downright fun (Barbie, Poor Things, American Fiction, El Conde, maybe even May December since it was supposedly a comedy but I could be wrong since I just didn’t get it). Films with sad themes were primarily uplifting tales about survival (Society of Snow, The Holdovers, Maestro, Nyad, Rustin). And the movies that probably should have been the most depressing were so poorly executed that they were too busy making me bored and angry to bother tugging at my neglected heartstrings (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Color Purple).

Best Animal Cruelty: Poor Things
A few years ago I was struck and dumbfounded at how many nominees featured animal death or cruelty, so it became something I tracked. Take all these numbers with a grain of sand; I never remember to track this stuff while watching the films, so it’s based on memory. I think that 5 of the 17 films I watched featured animal death or cruelty. The worst offender was definitely Napoleon, which seemed to go out of its way to graphically hurt or kill as many horses on screen as humanly possible. It’s like Ridley Scott got some sort of buy-one-get-one-free coupon from the CG store. The best animal cruelty, however, was in Poor Things, where Willem Dafoe’s character has mixed together all sorts of species in a twisted show of whimsy. Like these weirdos from the trailer:

Runner-up goes to Maestro for this traumatizing display of animal neglect:
https://youtu.be/Fr1UXS93dvU?si=QLvLd_dts11H5BAT

Anyway, here are the year-over-year stats.
2024: 29% (35% if you include Snoopy in Maestro)
2023: 50%!
2021: 32%
2020: 43%
2019: 21%

Helga Without the H Feminist Movie Award: Nyad
This award goes out every year to the film that shows women engaging in activities that are not about being women, or about their relationships to men. In other words; women who are fully-formed characters who have shit going on in their lives. That means that some of the seemingly most-feminist films (Like Barbie or Poor Things are out the door. Barbie is ENTIRELY about being a woman, and Poor Things is about a woman discovering the world, including the disparities between the genders. This year’s clear winner is Nyad, which depicts an older woman who is the only athlete in the entire world to ever swim from Cuba to Florida. Now while there are occasional references to gender (in one scene Jodie Foster’s character motivates our demoralized swimmer by teller her that people say she can’t do it because she’s a woman), the real challenge she faces pertains to her age; people dismiss her because she is a has-been, not because she has a vagina. She’s just a badass woman doing a badass thing, and I am here for it.

Wig on Toast Award: Abbé Sieyès in Napoleon
Every year I identify a character who is so boring or shallow or pointless that it can be played by a piece of toast wearing a wig. It’s not an insult to the actor playing the character, no, but to the filmmakers who decided to allow characters with zero depth into their film, usually a complete insult to the chops of whatever likely great actor is selected to play the shitty role (the original winner was Claire Foye’s pointless character in First Man). It could also be seen as a “biggest waste of talent” award. This award almost always goes to a crazy talented actress who is stuck playing “the concerned wife” or “the concerned daughter” or “the concerned love interest.” (The exception was when I gave the award to the entire cast of Tenet.) But this year we’re switching gears! I was SO EXCITED when the opening credits played for Napoleon, and the name “Julian Rhind-Tutt” appeared across my screen. In the off chance you don’t know, Rhind-Tutt starred as Dr. Mac in one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Britain’s short-lived bizzaro comedy Green Wing. This may sound familiar as the masterpiece that churned out this scene of future Oscar-winner Olivia Coleman stuffing a banana into a woman’s cleavage:
https://youtu.be/zAssh20BF-k?si=MPXWG84qljlcxz0R
I haven’t seen Rhind-Tutt in much else, but hot dang was I excited to see him in action, and in a big-budget Hollywood film, no less! Alas, he is on the screen for literally just two scenes. TWO SCENES! He seems like he is about to be a big character; he suggests to Napoleon that they should take over France together (or something like that- this film’s plot was nonsensical). And… that’s it. You bring this awesome man back into my life, have him say two lines, and then tear him away again?! HOW DARE YOU?! Literally anybody could have sat in that chair for those two lines. Anybody. Why bother having the character shoehorned in there at all? Ridiculous.

Best Animal Actor: The Dog in Anatomy of a Fall
I did not like this movie. But I thought they got a dang good performance out of that dog. He was, frankly, the best part of the otherwise terrible film.

And now we move on to…

The Official Helga Without the H Oscar Predictions

Here’s how this is going to work: For each category for which I’ve seen the nominees, I will provide:
1. My pick: who do I want to win
2. My prediction: who do I think will win
3. Dice prediction: RMNB (Russian Machine Never Break, my favorite hockey blog) does a thing where the writers each made their playoff predictions, then flip a coin and record the coin’s predictions as well. The joke is that the supposed experts’ picks are rarely any better than random chance. So, I’m going for the same thing here. Will the roll of the dice make better predictions than me? We’ll find out! And for anyone obsessed with rules: 1 is the first movie alphabetically, 5 is the last alphabetically, and 6 is a re-roll. For best picture (10 nominees) , 2 dice will be rolled, and 11 or 12 is re-roll.
4. Other nominees
5. Any pre-Oscar commentary I choose to provide (assuming I don’t run out of steam.)
Tonight while watching the awards ceremony, I will record the real winners, in the order presented, and will provide any reactions or follow-up commentary. At least that’s the plan. I might get bored and run out of steam.
[EDIT: That results and reactions post is now complete and available here.]
Okay, here we go…

Best Picture

My Pick: Poor Things
My Prediction: Oppenheimer
Dice Prediction: Barbie
Other nominees: American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, The Holdovers, The Zone of Interest
The big one! For me this is practically a no-brainer. Poor Things was just absolutely incredible. The only other film that I think might deserve it would be Zone of Interest, which was also very good. I know Oppenheimer is supposed to be the favorite and everyone loves it to shit, but I just didn’t think it was that good. Some might think Poor Things is too weird for the Oscar, but remember the academy has been liking some really weird shit in recent years. Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Shape of Water, and Parasite all come to mind. We are in The Age of Weird. Or has that age come to a close? Are we about due for another Holocaust winner? We’ll find out…

Best Supporting Actress

My Pick: Jodie Foster (Nyad)
My Prediction: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
Dice Prediction: Jodie Foster (Nyad)
Other nominees: America Ferrera (Barbie), Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple), Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
I’m surprised by how weak this category is this year. But none of these roles were particularly juicy, though the actresses were all totally fine. Maybe I’m just picking Jodie Foster because I liked her character the best. My prediction, unfortunately, is based almost entirely on who I think won the Golden Globe. I tried really hard to ignore the results from other award shows. I’ve managed to avoid SAGs entirely somehow, and most of BAFTAs. But I did see the GG results, though thankfully they were long ago enough that my memory is fuzzy (and I plan to leave it that way).

Best Supporting Actor

My Pick: Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer)
My Prediction: Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer)
Dice Prediction: Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)
Other nominees: Robert DeNiro (Killers of the Flower Moon), Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
This was a weak field, honestly. I think Sterling K. Brown was really good in American Fiction, but didn’t really have much to do. I just don’t see it for Ryan Gosling or Mark Ruffalo (in fact, I have no clue why Gosling is nominated.) That leaves Robert Downey Jr, who was pretty dang solid (but didn’t blow me away or anything.)

Best Actor

My Pick: Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
My Prediction: Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
Dice Prediction: Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
Other nominees: Colman Domingo (Rustin), Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)
Again, I know this is another one where Oppenheimer is expected to clean up. But most of the other nominees (save Jeffrey Wright) just had much juicier roles that impressed me much more. I’m pulling for Giamatti (he was so dang good!), wouldn’t disagree with Cooper, and would be really pleasantly surprised if Domingo snagged it.

Best Actress

My Pick: Emma Stone (Poor Things)
My Prediction: Emma Stone (Poor Things)
Dice Prediction: Annette Benning (Nyad)
Other nominees: Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), Carey Mulligan (Maestro), Sandra Huller (Anatomy of the Fall)
This is a hands-down easy pick. Nobody else comes close, save maybe Annette Benning. If anyone but Emma Stone gets this, I’m gonna be hella grumpy. If Huller gets it, I might punch my TV.

Best Director

My Pick: Chris Nolan (Oppenheimer)
My Prediction: Chris Nolan (Oppenheimer)
Dice Prediction: Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Other nominees: Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall), Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)
Confession time: I have no idea how to judge directors. Also, if you’ve been paying attention to my reviews, you know I have a complicated, frustrated relationship with Chris Nolan. But despite his pretention and the fact that his movie was too long, I dunno, I just kinda feel like this one should go to him. If Scorsese or Triet get it (WHYYY is boring-ass POS Anatomy of a Fall nominated for so much stuff?!?!?!) I’ll be grumpy. If Lanthimos gets it I’ll be thrilled. I’d be fine with Glazer.

Best Adapted Screenplay

My Pick: Poor Things
My Prediction: Barbie
Dice Prediction: The Zone of Interest
Other nominees: American Fiction, The Zone of Interest, Oppenheimer
The script on Poor Things is so bloody fantastic that there’s just no other contender here. It’s so smart and funny. Nothing else to say, really, except that I’m fascinated by Barbie counting as “Adapted” but don’t know if I have any actual feelings or opinions about it.

Best Original Screenplay

My Pick: The Holdovers
My Prediction: Past Lives
Dice Prediction: May December
Other nominees: Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall, Maestro
Man I love The Holdovers. Just like Poor Things, it’s so smart and funny. The most important thing to say here, though, is that my head is exploding at Anatomy of a Fall being nominated. HOW? WHY???? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?! Did I watch the wrong movie or something? Script was freakin’ terrible. So weird.

Best Cinematography

My Pick: Poor Things
My Prediction: Killers of the Flower Moon
Dice Prediction: Maestro
Other nominees: Oppenheimer, El Conde
Every frame in Poor Things was a piece of art. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Best Film Editor

My Pick: Oppenheimer
My Prediction: Oppenheimer
Dice Prediction: Oppenheimer
Other nominees: The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon
Hot dang, my pick, my prediction, and the dice prediction all align here! So… it’ll almost definitely be wrong. Also look, I’m acknowledging another good thing about a Chris Nolan movie. Here’s the thing, though… now that I’m thinking about this, I forgot that I got confused and annoyed by the film’s sequencing and time-jumping, especially towards the end. And that counts to some degree as part of film editing. So maybe I actually don’t like the editing in this film? BUT I am following my pub trivia rule for myself: never change an answer. (But if I did change an answer, I’d swap this to… I dunno… The Holdovers?)

Best Production Design

My Pick: Barbie
My Prediction: Barbie
Dice Prediction: Killers of the Flower Moon
Other nominees: Napoleon, Oppenheimer, Poor Things
I don’t think Barbie deserves a best picture nomination and I didn’t think it was the best thing since sliced bread like most of America did. But I AM blown away by the production design. All of the details in BarbieLand were just so incredibly perfect. The world ran out of pink paint, for f’s sake! I hope they kept that sent and it can be visited at Universal Studios or whatever, cuz dang I want to go to there. Gold star production design. Kudos.

Best Costume Design

My Pick: Barbie
My Prediction: Barbie
Dice Prediction: Oppenheimer
Other nominees: Napoleon, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon
I’m kinda surprised to see Poor Things here, even though I loved the film. The costumes were kooky and weird and fun, but Oscar-worthy? Meh, I dunno. Barbie, on the other hand, was a blast. The neon rollerblade outfits! Perfect!

Best Makeup and Hair

My Pick: Society of Snow
My Prediction: Maestro
Dice Prediction: Society of Snow
Other nominees: Golda, Oppenheimer, Poor Things
I considered giving this to Golda even thought I have absolutely no idea what this film is and am even too lazy and apathetic to google it. But it’s nominated for exactly nothing else, which makes me think the hair and makeup must be amazing. But instead I went for the movie that made people faces frostbite off. I wouldn’t be surprised or disappointed if Maestro got it, given they made Bradley Cooper look pretty dang old (plus they gave him that controversial but well-executed prosthetic nose.)

Best Sound

My Pick: The Zone of Interest
My Prediction: Oppenheimer
Dice Prediction: The Zone of Interest
Other nominees: The Creator, Maestro, Mission Impossible
I full assumed that I would give this to Oppenheimer when I watched it in the theatre. Creative uses of sound in the film really floored me. I was certain that would be my pick up until a few days ago, when I finally managed to watch Zone of Interest. Oppenheimer could still work with worse or different sound. But Zone of Interest was 90% dependent on sound. Zone of Interest was basically two films running concurrently: the boring family drama in the visuals, and the terrifying life behind the walls in the sound. All that being said, watch a stupid action movie get it instead.