Gabe: Hi, I’m Gabe Sachse, and I’m an Assistant News editor for Harker Aquila.

Desiree: And I’m Desiree Luo, and I’m one of the Aquila Managing Editors.

Gabe: Today we’re going to be discussing the 2024 Oscars.

Desiree: The 2024 Oscars, or the 96th Academy Awards, are going to be happening this Sunday, March 11, at 4pm. This year was a pretty big year for movies in general. We’re just going to go over what you should know ahead of watching the Oscars and which nominees you should be on the lookout for. 

We’re going to start with the major acting awards. For those of you who haven’t watched the Oscars before, there are four primary acting awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. We’ll start off with Best Actor.

Gabe: It’s a really strong group this year. I think the contest is pretty much over. It’s Cillian Murphy’s award to lose. On the scale of the actual movie, he did a fantastic job. He was subtle in all the right places. He embodied the grand spirit of the whole movie. You do have to wonder a little about whether he got carried in some moments by the score or the scene or [Christopher] Nolan’s directing, but Nolan has made it clear, in the Oscar campaigning sense, that without Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer” could not have been made. Looking at “Oppenheimer’s” position and some other major races, especially Best Picture, it means that Cillian Murphy is poised for a big win. 

I will say, though, if there’s anybody who deserves it besides Murphy, it is Paul Giamatti for “The Holdovers.” He embodies a character that would be otherwise off putting to audiences totally in big and small moments, just like Murphy, and he makes the character appealing to audiences. One place where his candidacy might be weakened is because his character is less of a focal point than Murphy was in “Oppenheimer.” For Giamatti’s character, he plays the teacher Paul Hunham in “The Holdovers.” He doesn’t get as much screen time, or at least he has to share it with the superstar and front runner for Best Supporting Actress, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, as well as Dominic Sessa, who, in his first performance in any major film, knocks it out of the park. Having to share the spotlight might take away a little from his candidacy here. Desiree, what do you think?

Desiree: I think that Cillian Murphy has a far greater chance of winning then Paul Giamatti. Murphy won the BAFTA, he won the Critics Choice Award, and he also recently won the Screen Actors Guild Award. All of these award ceremonies serve as checkpoints leading up to the Oscars, and you can gauge what the awards season will look like based on who wins these major awards. 

I was more drawn to Murphy’s performance. While I do think that Giamatti’s performance was quite touching, it didn’t really impact me the same way that Murphy’s performance did. 

The next notable acting category is Best Actress. Right now, the Best Actress category is probably the most contentious one because it’s not very clear who exactly is going to win the award, as opposed to Murphy, who basically faces no opposition in his category. The current front runners are Emma Stone for “Poor Things” and “Lily Gladstone” for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” They both won the Golden Globes, Emma Stone one for comedy performance and Lily Gladstone for drama performance. Initially, it seemed like Gladstone was gaining a lot of traction in her campaign. If she wins this weekend, then she will be the first Native American winner for the category. However, after Emma Stone won the BAFTA and the Critics Choice, Gladstone didn’t seem like a lock for the category anymore. Gladstone did win the SAG. 

It’s kind of like last year. Leading up to the Oscars, nobody was sure whether it would be Michelle Yeoh or Cate Blanchett. It’s a lot more interesting when you have two really strong actors competing in a category. There are a lot of interesting storylines to follow going into the ceremony. Lily Gladstone, obviously her win would be historic, as I mentioned earlier, and Emma Stone won an Oscar for “La La Land” a few years ago, so if she does win this one, then it would be her second Oscar, which is pretty notable for an actress who’s only 35 years old. It’s really nice to see that there is some suspense in an otherwise pretty steady and predictable award season.

Gabe: Yeah, I agree with you on all points. Admittedly, I was a little weirded out when I watched “Poor Things.” I didn’t really understand it. It’s almost designed to weird people out as much as it sends a message. 

On the other hand, “Killers of the Flower Moon” I was also a little underwhelmed by, but that’s mostly because I had read the book before I watched the movie, and the book was one of the best pieces of nonfiction I’ve ever read. However, I think the biggest bright spot of the movie was Gladstone’s performance. I think that she deserves this Oscar both for the fact that the story is so important, and her win would be very important and also because she turns in an incredible performance. 

Up next in the major acting categories is [Best] Actor in a Supporting Role. Much like the Best Actor category, the “Oppenheimer” nominee, Robert Downey Jr., has completely swept all of the awards thus far, and looks poised to take the top prize.

Desiree: It does seem like it’s Robert Downey Jr.’s award to lose. He has hit all the prerequisites, and I would be very surprised if another actor won the award.

Gabe: I think it’s basically a slam dunk at this point. But my favorite performance in this category was Sterling K. Brown in “American Fiction.” “American Fiction” has its faults. It’s definitely a Best Picture contender, in my opinion, but not the best movie of the year. But if there is one amazing performance to take away from it, it is Sterling K Brown. Jeffrey Wright is great. All the other supporting characters are great. But Brown is so funny, and yet, he just kind of encapsulates the more emotional side of the movie in contrast to Jeffrey Wright’s more logical character. He’s phenomenal, and I really think he should have gotten more buzz, but Downey was also great, and I think it’s nice to see someone who has put in so much work and had so much struggle over the course of his life finally reach the pinnacle of acting. 

Desiree: The Best Supporting Actress category also seems like it’s pretty set. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who played Mary in “The Holdovers,” has also won basically every single award leading up to the Oscars. I know that you are a big fan of “The Holdovers,” so what would you say about Randolph’s performance?

Gabe: Randolph knocks it out of the park. She might have the best performance of the entire year across all categories. There are three emotional hearts in the film. Dominic Sessa, the new actor who portrayed Angus Tully. Paul Giamatti, who portrayed Paul Hunnam, was obviously incredible. But Randolph is so good. Just shots of her made me cry multiple times while watching this movie. Not to spoil the movie extensively, she portrays a grieving mother, and yet, she does it in a way that makes her character witty, humorous, appealing to audiences and appealing to the hearts of anybody who watches the film. It’s clear that she’s kind of the thing that takes this movie from being a really good holiday movie to a classic that you can watch for a good laugh or a good cry at any time of the year. 

Desiree: She was just so poised throughout the movie that even though the character arcs of Dominic Sessa’s character and Paul Giamatti’s character were very compelling, I felt the most invested in Randolph’s story just because of the way that she carried herself throughout the movie. 

Gabe: Moving out of acting awards, Best Director and Best Picture kind of go hand in hand, and they are Christopher Nolan and “Oppenheimer’s” to lose, respectively. They’ve kind of swept everything. They deserve it tremendously. Nolan turns in perhaps the best directing performance of his career, maybe one of his best movies. It’s really hard for someone who has such a great filmography. 

However, when you get into the, I guess, deeper layers of these races, it gets a little more unclear now. Snubs, in general, I think a large portion of them come from “The Iron Claw,” which is a movie that was released pretty late in the award season and didn’t get a lot of campaigning. It looks like one of those movies that A24 releases to become a cult classic. Everybody loves it and they give rave reviews deep into the future, but it didn’t garner any awards. I think it probably should have been nominated for Best Picture. It was the biggest tearjerker of the entire year for me. That and “The Holdovers” are probably my two favorite movies of the year. Zac Efron, who most people know from “High School Musical,” was heartbreakingly good as the lead character, Kevin Von Erich. He was incredible, and not enough can be said about it. It was everything you wouldn’t expect from someone who played Troy Bolton, but he deserved it. 

Young actors, in general, tended to be a little snubbed. Charles Melton, who is devastatingly good in “May December” and practically made the movie as disturbing as it was, didn’t even seem to be considered for it, nor did Dominic Sessa for “The Holdovers.” It seems as if the Academy tended to favor older actors this year. I think there’s one major snub that everybody’s been talking about: “Barbie.”

Desiree: When the Oscar nominations came out, everyone was pretty angry on social media that Margot Robbie did not get nominated for Best Actress for her role as the titular character in “Barbie,” and Greta Gerwig did not get nominated for Best Director, in the context of “Barbie’s” other nominations, which were Ryan Gosling for Best Supporting Actor and America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress. 

I feel like Barbie was absolutely a historic cinematic event. A lot of people argue that Barbenheimer kind of saved cinema, and I can see that. Barbenheimer really revived the excitement that people have around going to movie theaters. People were dressing up to see the double feature. Everyone was quoting lines from it. Everyone was talking about “I’m Just Ken” and America Ferrera’s monologue. The whole concept of “Barbie” was just a cultural phenomenon that I feel many people will talk about in the future. It definitely deserves recognition for just the sheer cultural force that it was. 

But in terms of the acting and directing performances, I do think that both Robbie and Gerwig have had better work in the past, and they have been recognized for that work. I honestly think that the award that Barbie is getting, which is it being recognized by the public and remaining in conversation for years to come, is a far bigger and far more important award than any Oscar nod that it could receive. 

Gabe: I’m gonna have to agree to disagree with you there on the last couple of points that Gerwig and Robbie have better work. Sure, “Barbie” will be placed in the cultural lexicon, and it deserves so for many years to come, but I cried in the theater during the montage, that classic Greta Gerwig montage. I think it was a beautiful movie. 

I think that Gerwig’s directing and Robbie’s acting suffer from the same kind of Academy bias against things that actors and directors make look easy. Robbie’s performance looked easy. It wasn’t an easy performance, but probably because she was so intertwined with the creative vision of the film. She was able to do it in such an easy manner that the Academy was like, that couldn’t have been that hard. Same thing with Gerwig’s directing. There were incredible dance scenes. There were colorful sets. It just looks so effortless on screen. It looked like we were watching a real story play out. 

I was a little confused why they didn’t consider “Barbie,” Gerwig and Robbie a package deal the way that the Academy seems to consider “Oppenheimer,” Murphy and Nolan a package deal. But I don’t know. Maybe that’s industry bias. Maybe that’s the point of “Barbie,” that the story of “Oppenheimer” will always be more appealing to groups of people like the Academy than the story of “Barbie”.

Desiree: I do think that it did accomplish what it set out to do, which was a feel good comedy with a pretty empowering message for younger audiences. And along the way, it started Barbenheimer, which I think, honestly, is the best achievement that a film could have, establishing itself in the cultural lexicon as you said. 

It is nominated for Best Picture along with nine other films. So, what are your thoughts on the 10 nominees this year for Best Picture? 

Gabe: Well, as I said before, when we talked about Best Director, a little Oppenheimer is the clear favorite, attached to Nolan’s directing and his reputation. As someone who did Barbenheimer and thoroughly enjoyed it, “Oppenheimer” blew me away. It was an incredible theatrical experience. It’s one of those movies that is made on such a large scale that you almost have to watch it in a theater at least once. Seeing all those images of those practical effects created on the screen was nuts. The sound design was incredible. The score was phenomenal. When you watch this movie, especially in such an immersive experience, you’re on the edge of your seat the entire time, the acting, the directing, everything. 

With that being said, I don’t know, personally, if I would give it the Oscar. “The Holdovers” is just as well crafted, with incredible acting. I think it has a stronger emotional heart than “Oppenheimer.” It appeals to me more than “Oppenheimer,” and I think it appeals more to general audiences. I understand that Oppenheimer is kind of an achievement to filmmaking and thus deserves the Oscar, but I would say “The Holdovers” is a really strong contender as well. 

American Fiction, incredibly funny. “Anatomy of a Fall,” very subdued but yet also very striking. It’s a film based around an idea. “Killers of the Flower Moon,” great story. “Zone of Interest,” another movie that’s more subdued. “Poor Things,” it is a strong film, but it weirded me out a little. 

And then “Past Lives.” I think “Past Lives.” is probably the number three in this race. There’s this heavy symbolism throughout. Nobody says a word for like three minutes, and it still has you on the edge of your seat just like “Oppenheimer” does. 

But in the end, what Christopher Nolan does, what Cillian Murphy does, what Emily Blunt does, what Robert Downey Jr. does, what Ludwig Göransson, who created the score for Oppenheimer, does, what the cinematographers do—this movie is a piece of cinema. It’s a piece of art. It’s running away with the Oscar this year, and it would for most years. It is a combination of classic filmmaking and modern technique that deserves recognition, and I understand why it is the favorite for Best Picture, even if I don’t completely agree with that notion.

Desiree: I liked “The Holdovers” for what it tried to accomplish. It wasn’t a super heavy budget. It didn’t rely on a lot of special effects. It was just a really heartfelt simple story that tugged at a lot of people’s heartstrings, especially during Christmas time. In the current industry where so many films rely on being these blockbusters or cinematic displays, I think that “The Holdovers” is unique in the fact that it really just relies on the storytelling. 

But because leading up to watching “The Holdovers,” I heard so many positive reviews of it, when I did sit down to watch it, it kind of lacked any impact for me. The whole film felt a little bit disconnected from me. Maybe I should watch it again some other time when it has had time to sit. Maybe next Christmas, I’ll rewatch it and I’ll enjoy it some more. 

“Oppenheimer” is definitely the favorite to win, and I would say that it deserves the award. The last third of the film falls a little bit flat, and it gets a little stagnant. But for the most part, it was just really compelling. Like you said, it was also this really memorable cinematic event. I saw “Oppenheimer” in IMAX, and that made the whole experience so much more immersive. The sound was just incredible. Seeing the film so up close, and in such detail was definitely one of the most memorable experiences that I’ve ever had in the theater.

Gabe: Absolutely, absolutely. I think I feel about “Past Lives” the way that you do about “The Holdovers.” I’ve praised it earlier. I mean, it is a great film. Technically, it’s amazing. The shots, that cinematography, how it does so much with so little, in a way it feels almost like a short film, but it’s not, it’s a full-length feature. But I couldn’t connect, personally, to that story. A lot of people said that they sobbed during that movie, and I didn’t even shed a tear. I mean, it’s probably something that you relate to as you get older, I didn’t connect to it as much as other people did. And I think the fact that “The Holdovers” and “Past Lives” centered so much on their emotionality probably made it harder for Oscar voters to agree on them being as good as “Oppenheimer,” which appeals to everybody because it’s such a grand spectacle. 

Overall, I think the Oscars this year, while they’re not as tense as previous years because of the lack of suspense in a lot of races and the fact that some are so clearly finished, and the fact that all the because of the strike, I think a bunch of award shows got rescheduled to being before the Oscars. So we know all of the award winners before the actual award show begins. Because of that, it’ll be a less compelling watch. But because these movies are so great, and cinema kind of came back this year, it’ll be really nice to see everybody get their flowers.

Desiree: Thank you so much for listening to our thoughts on the Oscars. Definitely watch the ceremony, and let us know if you have any Oscars predictions because we’d love to hear about those.