2017 Oscar Movie Moments in Review
In honor of the 90th Academy Awards tonight I wanted to share my picks for some of the categories. Win or lose, here is an iota of recognition for artists who made this a great year of cinema. Accompanying each winner is a brief but special moment from the movie.
Best Original Song: “Mystery of Love” from Call Me by Your Name — Music and Lyrics by Sufjan Stevens
How much sorrow can I take?
Blackbird on my shoulder
And what difference does it make
When this love is over?
Best Costume Design/Original Score: Phantom Thread — Costumes: Mark Bridges — Score: Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame filled every immaculate corner of the frame with 18 hauntingly beautiful melodies. The score wraps snugly and flawlessly around the film like yet another masterfully conceived garment from the House of Woodcock.
Best Cinematography/Production Design/Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049 — Cinematographer: Roger Deakins — Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Alessandra Querzola — Visual Effects: John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R. Hoover
Static fizz as drops land solidly onto the hologram. A contradiction. Her outline flicks with the translucence and delicacy of a candle in the wind. She feels what it must be to exist, at least as close as technology has come, to be tangible on the earth. She touches his face, makes contact with his skin, and longs to be touched back.
Best Animated Feature Film: Coco — Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson
A young boy sits next to his great grandmother softly strumming a guitar. He sings a song that her father would to sing to her when she was young, “I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart.” Slowly she remembers her father, remembers the lyrics, and sings along.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me by Your Name — James Ivory based on the novel by André Aciman
Best Original Screenplay: Lady Bird — Written by Greta Gerwig
Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf — Lady Bird as Marion McPherson
Perusing the aisles of Thrift Town, a mother and daughter argue with a whispered and acidic vigor. A momentary interaction with an acquaintance brings the shortest reprieve before the two are once again locking horns. Suddenly the discovery of a beautiful pink dress instantaneously flips both into coos of mutual delight.
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Stuhlbarg — Call Me by Your Name as Mr. Perlman
(This is where I have to draw the line and break my rule about winners being nominees. Mr. Stuhlbarg featured in three of the best picture movies this year, The Shape of Water, The Post, and Call Me by Your Name. He also delivered the monologue of the year in Call Me by Your Name.)
Mr. Perlman calmly sits on the couch next to his silently grieving son. One hand on a cigarette, balancing an ashtray on his knee, he quietly consoles his boy with a delicate appreciation for what he cannot fully understand, and yet fully accepts. “We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!”
Best Actress: Margot Robbie — I, Tonya as Tonya Harding
Staring into a mirror, her face a mess of caked makeup and barely checked emotion. She smears another layer of color to her cheeks. Just as she is about to lose her composer she forces her face into a rigid smile. A practiced contortion by an Olympic caliber performer.
Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet — Call Me by Your Name as Elio Perlman
The sun hanging over another perfect lazy day. Dismounting off their bikes and sharing a smoke, the two are finally alone. Elio leans over the railing, supporting his frame, he lifts up his head and decides it is better to speak rather than die.
Best Director: Christopher Nolan — Dunkirk
Thousands of beleaguered young men cheer on the beaches as hundreds of vessels begin to dot the horizon. On these civilian boats are Fathers, Mothers, younger siblings, and neighbors, each braving the perils of war to bring their boys back home safe.
Best Picture: Call Me by Your Name — Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, and Marco Morabito
A group of young people dance on an open air floor lit with hues of purple, pink, and blue. Love My Way by The Psychedelic Furs blares, Oliver, alone in his own world, eyes closed, hands in the air, moves freely to the music. Elio and Marzia join, weaving, hoping, and sliding to the beat. A perfect summer night in the northern Italian countryside.