By Guillermo Azabal | Los Angeles (USA) (EFE).- From the parallel universes of “Everything Everywhere All At Once” to the film tribute of “The Fabelmans”, anything can happen at the Oscar ceremony next Sunday, where the options for the statuette for best film remain, despite everything, very open.
Author cinema released on streaming platforms and critically acclaimed independent films are competing for the main prize with the highest grossing films of the year.
The Oscars and the head to head among the favorites
And if before the awards season began, Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical film – “The Fabelmans” – was the favorite, now, when the voting for the Hollywood Academy is about to close, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” is already the top contender.
The film directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert arrives with 11 nominations and won the triplet at the Hollywood Producers Guild Awards (PGA), at the Directors Guild Awards (DGA Awards) and at the Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG).
With the exception of “Apollo 13” (1995), all the films that bagged these three awards were subsequently awarded as best film by the Hollywood Academy.
However, the experts do not have everything with them to herald its success, as this fantastic adventure about a family superheroine in parallel universes does not seem to excite the most veteran members of the Hollywood Academy.
This more traditional sector will try to captivate “The Fabelmans”, a great winner at the Golden Globes and an Oscar candidate in 7 categories, an ode to cinema that has the advantage of bearing the Spielberg seal.
An edition with room for surprises
If there is a movie that is not a favorite for almost nothing but that can win everything, that is “The Banshees of Inisherin” (“Almas en Pena de Inisherin”, in Spanish), Martin McDonagh’s film that has 9 nominations and awarded in the British BAFTAs.
On a small Irish island a few years after the First World War, this tragicomedy takes place that portrays the complexities of friendship.
It may be the great cover with permission of “All Quiet On The Western Front”, a film directed by the German Edward Berger that is based on the novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque that narrated the nonsense of the Big war.
Although it would be logical for it to triumph in the category of best international film, its 9 nominations, its great performance at the BAFTAs and its reflection on the Ukrainian War make it one of the most outstanding productions for this edition.
Blockbusters and music: from “Avatar” to Tár”
The shortlist for best film also includes the highest grossing titles of the year such as “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick”, which have already been placed with the third and twelfth highest-grossing films in history, with 2,245 and 1,485 million dollars respectively.
Both the James Cameron and Joseph Kosinski films eased the lethargy suffered by movie theaters after the pandemic, but their real aspirations this year go through categories such as the best special effects, in which both compete.
Much more modest was the irruption at the box office of the musical biopic “Elvis”, although its options to establish itself as best film seem as limited as those of the previous two.
The rise and fall into hell of the “King of Rock” were skilfully recounted in this work by Baz Luhrmann that surprised with 8 Oscar nominations and hopes to put the finishing touch with the statuette of best leading actor for Austin Butler.
In a musical key, the drama “Tár” also appears, in which the director Todd Field shows the desire for power or the need to transcend in the skin of the conductor Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett.
The Australian has won the award for best actress in almost all the important appointments of the course and is the only great recognition that “Tár” looks at with objective possibilities.
A critique of the system and a religious drama, last contenders
The satire “Triangle of Sadness” and the religious drama “Women Talking”, which have received 3 and 2 Oscar nominations respectively, are the films that have completed the list of nominees for best picture.
With “Triangle of Sadness”, the filmmaker Ruben Östlund criticizes the drift of capitalism. This work, which was not selected to represent Sweden in the category of best international film, won the Palme d’Or at the last Cannes Film Festival.
In “Women Talking”, director Sarah Polley brings to the big screen the plot of the book of the same title written by Canadian Miriam Toews, which recounts the systematic rapes of a group of women in a Mennonite village in the deep Bolivia.
The Oscars will celebrate their 95th edition this Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles (USA).
