Manchester by sea realesed on January 23th of 2016 at Sundance film festival and later picked by Amazon studios for wider realese at December 16th. It was directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan and starred Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle chandler and lucas Hedges. The film received critical acclaim from critics who praised the direction, screenplay, Affleck and William's performances, ans grossed 79m worldwide against a budget of 9m. Casey won many major awards for his performance and on 89th academy awards the film was nominated for six oscars and won two: Best picture, Best director, Best original screenplay(WIN), Best actor for Affleck(WIN), Best supporting actress for Williams, Best supporting actor for Hedges.
While not as talked as La la land or Moonlight. Manchester by sea is consider as one of best films of 2016 and of 2010s with many still praising Affleck 's performance and Lonergan's screenplay and direction. As a winner it would had probably be viewed very good though some would still either la la Land or moonlight snubbed and plus the controversies of Casey might had did a bit damage but overall it would had been viewed as good winner
I feel like the Oscars would be way cooler and competitive if we have genres like best romance, horror yada yada and it would make directors and actors try new things just me?
I'm Still Here is the first Brazilian-produced movie to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. Although it was an underdog to win the Oscar, the movie itself is a passionate look at political injustices and the difficulty one has in moving on through uncertainty. Its themes of time passing and what remains of memory reminded me of my favourite poem, Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. In the poem, Eliot struggles with the concept of time and our place in it. In I'm Still Here, the main character, played by Fernanda Torres, continues to fight the past in order to gain justice for her family. All the while, she is incapable of letting the past go because it's where her greatest memories live forever.
As a Canadian, I never learned Brazilian history. I've never visited the country and I know little about its politics. The most important Brazilian figure that I know is Vini. I don't think I'm in the minority when it comes to North Americans who are watching I'm Still Here for the first time. Though I enjoyed the movie without knowing its political context, my post-movie online deep dive helped detail the bigger picture.
It turns out, Brazilian politics is a huge can of worms, especially in the second half of the 20th century. My little research project turned quickly into an hours-long escapade into an unknown world. I don't claim to be an expert, by any means, and I reserve the right to have some of my facts mixed up, but I hope this article helps provide context to I'm Still Here, for those unfamiliar with Brazil's history.
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now.
The actions of I'm Still Here started years before the movie is actually set. Rubens Paiva was a congressman for the Labour Party. He was part of a committee that investigated two conservative advocacy groups, which were thought to have helped cause a red scare in Brazil. This Cold War tactic of using propaganda to make civilians fear communism was prevalent after the successful communist revolution in Cuba.
Time before and time after.
In 1964, Brazil turning communist was a major concern for powerful Brazilians. A plan was formed to overthrow the liberal government of President João Goulart and replace it with a military dictatorship. Rubens, a leftist like Goulart, opposed this plan. However, his opposition was not enough. Goulart was overthrown and Rubens was stripped of his place in the Brazilian government.
Turning shadow into transient beauty
Despite losing his title, Rubens continued to fight against the new regime. He supported exiled militants and guerrilla members in Brazil and abroad. These militants wanted to recreate China and Cuba in Brazil, meaning they wanted an armed struggle that would achieve a socialist revolution. When returning from a trip, Rubens was mistakenly identified by the regime as a contact of Carlos Lamarca, the dictatorship's most wanted man.
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence.
To destroy the rebel groups and stop major protests in the cities, the dictatorship introduced Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5) in 1968. AI-5 suspended most civil rights, including the right to a trial in court. It also allowed the removal of political opponents from office, and the use of torture and extrajudicial killings (basically killing someone without taking them to court—murder). AI-5 also censored music, films, theatre and television, and the press.
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
In I'm Still Here, Rubens and his wife Eunice, our protagonist, seem to live an idyllic life during this period of heavy censorship. They live by the beach in a nice house with their five children. They listen to music, watch the news and have politically charged conversations with their colleagues. They spend a day at the beach, celebrating their daughter's birthday. A family photo is taken. None knew that their days of being an idyllic family were soon to be over.
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
Because of the mistaken belief that Rubens was a contact of Lamarca, the military raided his house on January 20, 1971. They took Rubens in for questioning and he was never seen again. This forced disappearance is the central action of Walter Salles's movie. Eunice spends the rest of her life trying to get answers regarding her husband's whereabouts. We know now that he died the day after his arrest from injuries related to torture.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
While the government wanted to do anything but remember the past, Eunice made it her life mission to bring the regime's atrocities to light. In 1979, the government passed an amnesty law for crimes committed against and for the regime—emphasis on for. It was not until 1996 that Eunice would receive a death certificate for her husband. In 2012, the National Truth Commission finally determined the estimated numbers of deaths and disappearances during the dictatorship, which included an estimated 8,300 indigenous people killed or disappeared, with the commission admitting that the real figure was probably much higher. Eunice, when not trying to find answers about her husband, started a law career and worked to end the government's efforts to steal land from Brazil's indigenous peoples.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
To me, the main theme of I'm Still Here, outside of all the political subtext, is memory. It is the story of Eunice, who had her life destroyed in only one day by having her husband disappear. Although she did not know it at the time (how could she?), that party at the beach was the last time they would be one big happy family.
It's about how an all-encompassing regime can destroy a person's life, the same people they are supposed to protect and represent. While Rubens torture was painful, it was also swift. Eunice, on the other hand, had to live with her torture—the mental torment of the unknown—for her entire life.
It made me think of how these regimes come and go, yet it's the people whom they affect that have to live with the repercussions. It's in this way that Eunice is still here, while the dictatorship is gone. Although here in the physical sense, I belive Eunice is, mentally, still at that beach, when her kids were laughing and rubbing Coca-Cola on their skin. When her husband was pretending to bury their daughter's tooth, only to hold on to it like the tooth fairy should. It's this heap of broken images that won't fade away. And it was the regime's brutality that caused Eunice to never mentally move on from those glorious days of smiles and love.
What drew me back to Four Quartets was two things. The first was the decision by Salles and the screenwriters to repeat the images from their beach party in the later stages of I'm Still Here. It made me think that Eunice kept remembering that day, even in moments when she was overwhelmed by the Herculean task of exposing a government that did not want to be exposed. The second was how Eunice ends the movie as an old lady (played by Fernanda Torres's real mother, Fernanda Montenegro) who has Alzheimer's. Even in her frail mental state, when she watches a documentary about those tumultuous years, she seems to still remember—still be there, at the still point of memory. Who knows how long she has really been there.
I'm Still Here is the kind of movie that looks simple on the surface, but the subtext runs deep. Its messaging and background are as dense as the Amazon rainforest. I hope this article helps provide some context for North American viewers that are unaware of Brazilian politics. This country's politcal history, and the story of I'm Still Here, is really a microcosm of the world-engulfing Cold War. Although many will go see I'm Still Here to see Fernanda Torres act in this Oscar-nominated role, it's important to remember that this story comes from a real place of real consequence. Like T. S. Eliot implies in his poem, the world may keep turning, but we remain still in the place of our fondest memories.
So I've thought this for years and I'm curious what others think. I think that, aside from Best Picture, the acting awards are the ones people tend to care about the most (with the exception of a few well known directors and screenwriters, but those are the exception). I would love to see them double the number of categories by doing a bigger breakdown of the existing categories. I would like to see both of the top awards split into Best Starring Actor/Actress and Best Lead Actor/Actress, and then see both supporting categories split into Best Supporting Actor/Actress and Best Actor/Actress in a Role With Limited Screentime.
Starring is pretty obvious. The name is definitely above the title, their image is probably on the poster, and there's usually only 1-3 per movie (1 main villain/rival, and 1-2 main protagonists, or 1 protagonist plus a love interest or extremely important best friend or family member),
Lead would be for the kinds of roles that we often see compete in supporting and get labeled as category fraud. The people who are billed 3rd-5th but are still basically in the movie the whole time and pretty central to the plot (ie, Geoffrey Rush in the King's Speech). The romantic interest of the lead character who is more properly termed a co-lead rather than a co-star (ie, Meryl Streep in Kramer vs. Kramer is a co-lead to Dustin Hoffman, whereas Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson are true co-stars in Something's Gotta Give). The villain who is omnipresent, doesn't get the same screen time as the hero, but is still in the movie more than anyone except 1-2 protagonists (ie Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men went supporting even though his face covered the whole poster, Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, or Mo'Nique in Precious). Other supporting roles that are just a lot meatier: Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (if you think Beyonce was the Start), Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls, both Anita-s in West Side Story, Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby, maybe Anette Benning in American Beauty, Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, joe Pesci in GoodFellas, Olivia de Havilland in Gone With the Wind, JK Simmons in Whiplash, Claude Raines in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This could also be the category for submitting ensemble casts with no true "star" (Spotlight, Crash, Short Cuts) - everyone in the main ensemble goes in Lead with no stars, and anyone who isn't part of the main ensemble goes in Supporting or Limited. So for Spotlight, you could have 4 on the actual Spotlight team all go in as Lead; Stanley Tucci, Liev Schrieber, and John Slattery under consideration as Supporting, and then maybe Billy Crudup in the Limited category.
With co-leads in their own category, Supporting could be for truly supporting performers. Queen Latifah doesn't have to compete against Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago. Teri Garr doesn't have to compete with Jessica Lange for Tootsie. Michael J. Pollard doesn't have to compete with Gene Hackman for Bonnie and Clyde.
The Limited Screen Time category (I'm open to suggestions for better, more concise names) would be for parts that almost never get recognized, the people who make a big impact in just one or two scenes, but really don't have enough time to compete with a supporting performer who is in half of the movie. I'm thinking of Viola Davis in Doubt, Beatrice Straight and Ned Beatty in Network, some of the smaller but memorable performances in Gone With The Wind that couldn't go up against Olivia and Hattie (Ona Munson as Belle Watling and Laura Hope Crews as Aunt Pittypat for example), Ruby Dee in American Gangster, Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve, Hermione Baddely in Room at the Top, John Lithgow in Terms of Endearment, Sydney Pollack and Doris Belack in Tootsie, America Ferrara in Barbie, or either of Sylvia Miles' nominations. It's hard to make an impact in just a couple of scenes, and competing with supporting actors who aren't leads but are still in 30-50% of the movie is a big climb.
This would double the number of actors nominated or winning in a given year. It might get more people to watch if their favorite is among the nominees. Supporting would stop being a near constant battle of who got the most screen time and convinced people not to put them in Lead, or at least to the same degree. It would also some newcomers a better shot if they could get a nomination for their first roles, which tend to be smaller, than having to compete with stars who have labeled themselves as supporting to boost their win/nom stats. It would also allow for some honest competition among people who truly are in-betweens in the current lead/supporting dichotomy.
For me, they would be Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Faye Dunaway in Network, and Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.
My favorite is 2009's Coraline. It was nominated for Animated Feature, and never would win against Up. However, I do think it would have been worthy of nominations in score, production design, and even adapted screenplay.
What is your favorite movie that got only 1 nomination?
Hacksaw ridge realesed as out of competition on 4th September of 2016 at Venice film festival and later on November 4th by Lionsgate on worldwide realese. It was directed by Mel Gibson and it is based on 2004 documentary "The Conscientious Objector" directed by Terry Benedict (Who also co-produce the film) and starred Andrew Garfield, Sam Washington, Luke bracey, Hugo weaving and Teresa Palmer. The film received generally very good reviews from critics who praised the acting, direction and sound desing and grossed 180m on the box office worldwide against a budget of 40m. On 89th academy awards the film was nominated for six oscars and won two: Best picture, Best director, Best actor for Garfield, Best film editing(WIN), Best sound editing and best sound mixing(WIN).
The public reception for Hacksaw ridge is general pretty good while only a bit more mixed. As a winner, it would had probably be a very divisive one some love it or some hate it. I don't think it would had be either be consider as high or bottom tier winner but many people will agree that other better films existed that year
Albertson won for The Subject Was Roses, and Wilder's only acting nomination came from his role in The Producers. Albertson is one of 11 people who won a Tony and Oscar for playing the same character.
The lineup for Best Animated Feature has been decided! Nominees are:
- Flow (2024, Latvia)
- Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Japan)
- Persepolis (2007, France)
- Princess Mononoke (1997, Japan)
- Spirited Away (2001, Japan)
Today's category is Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Rules:
Only feature films not primarily in English allowed - no documentaries or short films
No 2025 films
Films and performances do not have to be previous Oscar nominees or winners
Comment the name of the film, the year it was released and its primary language/country. If your choice has already been commented, give it an upvote instead of commenting again
Top 5 upvoted comments will decide the nominees, which will be voted on once all the categories have been decided. Voting will be open for 24 hours.
Do you think that voice performances should be included in acting nominations?
I’m watching the awards contender and he did a video a while back of 10 voice performances that he thinks should’ve gotten Oscar nominations. He believes that voice performances should be on the same level as physical performances because you could still convey the same emotions.
If you look at the history as well, Scarlett Johansson got a nomination for critics choice for her and Eddie Murphy got a BAFTA nomination for Shrek
So do you think that voice performances should be eligible for Oscar nominations?
Eliminated - Belfast (2021), written and directed by Kenneth Branagh - 39.3% of all votes. Belfast won Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Annual Academy Awards, and received a total of 7 nominations, including nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. The other films nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Annual Academy Awards were Don’t Look Up, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, and The Worst Person in the World. Belfast also won Best Original Screenplay at the Golden Globe Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards, and received a nomination at the BAFTA Awards. The writer for Belfast, Kenneth Branagh, also wrote the screenplays for Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Hamlet (1996), just to name a few. His Academy Award for Belfast was his first and only Oscar for writing so far, and his second of two nominations for writing.
Fill out the form by just selecting the winner you most want to be ELIMINATED next. The more people who vote, the more competitive and fun the competition will be! Keep in mind, you’re voting for which film you think has the WORST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY. NOT which film is your least favorite.
Remaining Contestants:
- Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe
- Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes
- Talk to Her, Pedro Almodóvar
- Lost in Translation, Sophia Coppola
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Charlie Kaufman, Michael Gondry, and Pierre Bismuth
- Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt
- Juno, Diablo Cody
- Milk, Dustin Lance Black
- The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
- The King’s Speech, David Seidler
- Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
- Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
- Her, Spike Jonze
- Birdman; Armando Bo, Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Nicolás Giacobone, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu
- Spotlight, Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
- Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan
- Get Out, Jordan Peele
- Parasite, Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won
- Everything Everywhere All at Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
- Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari
- Anora, Sean Baker
Ranking so far:
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell
Green Book; Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, and Nick Vallelonga
What's one of those for you? I have a Cinema 101 class and tonight I showed my students "Soul" from Pixar. I know this got the Animation Oscar, but this really deserves a best picture nomination; I see it on the same level of quality and depth of character, emotion and just philosophy as Up or Toy Story 3. Is it because it got the shaft theatrically during the Pandemic and went right to Disney plus? It would've been cool to see it nominated and definitely deserved it over at least a few of the actual nominees for 2020/21
So it got well a deserved cinematography nomination and score win, also got Jennifer Jason Leigh into supporting actress (who I think should’ve won) but didn’t get screenplay (which it got BAFTA, CCA and even got into the Globes 5 for) or Picture.
IMO it also should’ve gotten best actor for Samuel L. Jackson and best supporting actor for either Walton Goggins or Kurt Russell. Also wouldn’t of minded it also getting a makeup and hairstyling nom.
What’s everyone else opinions and what nominees do you think it deserved to get? (if any)
