Oscar Nominations Reactions and Two Excellent Movies the Academy Totally Ignored

For as much as the Academy got right with their nominations, they whiffed on a couple great 2023 movies

This week brought us the Oscar nominations, and boy, did we have thoughts! On the podcast, we were joined by returning guest Kenny Ashton of The CineBoiz Podcast to break down each of the major categories with our biggest surprises and snubs from the Academy. Listen below and see the full nominations here. (Also, about 10 months ago in this newsletter we guessed which 10 movies would be nominated for Best Picture, and we got 5 of them right!)

Apple Podcasts:

Spotify:

We’ll have more discussion and coverage of the Oscar-nominated movies in the coming weeks, but for today’s newsletter, we wanted to give some love to a couple of our 2023 favorites that the Academy totally ignored. Here’s two very different biopics from major directors that shoulda been a contenda at this year’s Oscars.

Drew recommends…

Ferrari

Some of our most high-profile filmmakers caught the biopic bug in 2023. Two were nominated for Best Picture, Christopher Nolan’s astonishing Oppenheimer and Bradley Cooper’s so-so Maestro. Sofia Coppola trained her distinct eye on the experiences of Priscilla Presley (read Billy on this one below!) and Ridley Scott tackled the monumental life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Michael Mann’s Ferrari was not the best or the worst of these 2023 auteur biopics, but the way he approached Enzo Ferrari’s story may have been the most interesting. 

Instead of cramming decades of major life events into a couple hours on screen, Mann zeroes in on a life-changing few weeks for iconic Italian race car entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari. It’s the summer of 1957 as Ferrari (Adam Driver) prepares his team for the Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile endurance race, even as his company is in financial straits. Meanwhile, his domestic life crashes into his professional one, as his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) gets closer to learning of Enzo’s mistress and illegitimate son while she still grieves the loss of their son. 

It had been eight years since Michael Mann made a movie and even longer since he had a well-received one. He’d been trying to make Ferrari for a long time, which makes sense because the subject fits him and his artistic preoccupations: cool professionalism, anguished masculinity, grave consequences. Mann is the ultimate technician, so it’s no surprise that Ferrari rips through its visceral racing scenes. However, this film is much more death-haunted than I would’ve guessed, which adds weight to the action inside those gorgeous red Ferrari vehicles. As Enzo says in the movie, this is his “deadly passion” and “terrible joy.” 

Adam Driver is more than up to the task of portraying Mann’s Enzo Ferrari, a man of both legendary stature and torn apart with guilt. Even better is Penelope Cruz, who brings a deeply felt focus and fury to her part. The only weak link is a miscast Shailene Woodley as Ferrari’s mistress Lina. 

While Ferrari was never going to win Best Picture this year, this is still an impressively crafted sports drama that absolutely should’ve been a player for editing, cinematography, and sound nominations. Mann is famous for painstakingly ensuring his films look and sound exactly how he wants them to, and this late career entry is no different. And while Driver may have deserved a nod for Best Actor, the biggest Academy mistake was overlooking Cruz for Best Supporting Actress. Her Laura Ferrari is the type of fascinating and complex character that alone makes Ferrari worth the price of admission. 

Available to rent digitally on demand

---

Billy recommends…

Priscilla

What is worse? A movie you don’t like getting a lot of Oscars or one of your favorites getting no Oscars? The latter is my current feeling and it feels at best silly. Priscilla had performances, direction, and the screenplay categories that felt like outside chances to get some love before award season started. But the categories that felt certain were things like makeup and costume design. And the love never came.

Priscilla has a stretch that is about an hour long that is the best filmmaking I saw all year. Director Sofia Coppola beautifully navigates the complexity of examining Priscilla Presley’s relationship with Elvis. She had to highly criticize Elvis while not putting too much of the focus on him. 

Cailey Spaney as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis fully immerse themselves in the calming chaos this film explores. Our friend Taylor Blake calls Sofia Coppola, “The Patron Saint of Lonely Women.” What is obviously traumatic quietly unravels before you. And this relationship that Coppola explores is hauntingly drawn out. The meet cute to start the movie disorients the audience into a zombie-like state. The age difference is obviously stated, but the surrounding beauty of the actors and cinematography create a daze-like headspace that comforts you into submission.

When a movie opens so strongly there is an expectation everyone else will love it, but it is not the case. A nomination would have helped this big story be seen. Sofia deserves its praise and it is insane it had no nominations this year..

Streaming on Max