Each year my cinemaphilic nephew Steven gives his nominations for the best achievements in motion picture production, all vying for the coveted “Gold Steve” awards. They appear on his website Truth at 24, and if you click below you can see the whole list of nominees. There’s not much overlap with the Oscar nominees. The title comes from one of the nominated movies below (“Fallen Leaves”):
Here’s Steven’s introduction to the nominees (the awards will come “sometime in April”), written with his characteristic modesty:
Presenting…the 2023 Golden Steve Awards.
Far and away the most coveted of motion picture accolades, Golden Steves are frequently described as the Oscars without the politics. Impervious to bribery, immune to ballyhoo, unswayed by sentiment, and riddled with integrity, this committee of one might be termed in all accuracy “fair-mindedness incarnate.” Over 200 of the year’s most acclaimed features were screened prior to the compilation of this ballot. First, some caveats:
1) Owing to a lifelong suspicion of prime numbers, each category comprises six nominees, not five.
2) A film can be nominated in only one of the following categories: Best Animated Feature, Best Non-Fiction Film, Best Foreign Language Film. Placement is determined by the Board of Governors. Said film remains eligible in all other fields.
3) This list is in no way connected with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—a fact that should be apparent from its acumen. Please look elsewhere for Oscar analysis.
I’ll present the nominees in the most followed categories, but be aware that there are more on the site. Also, Steven has excellent taste in movies, so it would behoove you to pay attention to the list.
Best Picture
Afire
All of Us Strangers
Anatomy of a Fall
Killers of the Flower Moon
May December
Trenque LauquenBest Director
Laura Citarella, Trenque Lauquen
Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers
Todd Haynes, May December
Christian Petzold, Afire
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a FallBest Actor
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Benoit Magimel, Pacifiction
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Franz Rogowski, Passages
Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
Michael Thomas, RiminiBest Actress
Jodie Comer, The End We Start From
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall
Natalie Portman, May December
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and OneBest Supporting Actor
Jamie Bell, All of Us Strangers
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Glenn Howerton, BlackBerry
Charles Melton, May December
Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers
Mark Ruffalo, Poor ThingsBest Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Ferrari
Merve Dizdar, About Dry Grasses
Claire Foy, All of Us Strangers
Anne Hathaway, Eileen
Rachel McAdams, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The HoldoversBest Non-Fiction Film
Apolonia, Apolonia (Lea Glob)
Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin)
Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (Frederick Wiseman)
Orlando, My Political Biography (Paul B. Preciado)
Our Body (Claire Simon)
To Kill a Tiger (Nisha Pahuja)Best Foreign Language Film
About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Afire (Christian Petzold)
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)
Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Very good – it’d be interesting to know the take on scores – especially because Hans Zimmer is scoring the new Dune movie – has throat-singing, lots of fascinating stuff to complement the screen.
Or, whatever scores.
Steve clearly likes All Of Us Strangers, highlighting all four principal actors. Cannot recommend this movie highly enough, it’s superb.
Are You There God? It’s me Margaret was a pleasant surprise for me. I would have liked a little more of the awkwardness of Margaret’s grandparents’ {RELIGOUS}differences before the “Blow-out” at the dinner table, but I really appreciate how the young actors portraying Margaret and her schoolmates were (precocious ly) spot on. Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates were great as Mother-in-Law v Daughter-in-Law characters (and thankfully, added to – but didn’t have to “carry” the quality of the movie thanks to the aforementioned schoolkids).
Well, surprise, surprise… I just watched Poor Things and liked it more than Oppenheimer which I liked very much. Have to watch the ones on Steve’s list.
Tips on WEIT, whether on books or movies, are always excellent. A bit of background on “About dry grasses”: For years, the PKK terrorist organization (Kurdish nationalist separatist communist militia) assassinated teachers working in the villages of the east, I presume because they were seen as representatives of the Turkish state. It was worst in the 90s, but teachers are being killed or abducted to this day. Add to that archaic local social norms, civil war tensions (civilians caught in clashes between army and guerilla, “traitors” to the guerrilla being assassinated), clan-like authoritarian family structures, enmity plus the isolation and and you get a very difficult working environment for educated liberals. The father of a person I know, a leftist idealist and from the region himself, taught there for a while, but had to move to Istanbul due to death threats.