With “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” fighting for victory in multiple categories, this year’s Academy Award was nail-biting due to how stacked the moves were. Comedian Conan O’Brien hosted the 3-hour plus long ceremony held March 13 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Best Picture
Admittedly, I was rooting for “Sinners” to win. Out of the eight contenders for Best Picture, “Sinners” seemed like the choice due to its creativity, directing and acting courtesy of performers like Michael B. Jordan and important commentary on race and the power of art and music. However, I can’t say I was disappointed with “One Battle After Another” winning as it was an incredibly well-made and high-energy action thriller.
Best Actor
Michael B. Jordan, the lead actor of “Sinners,” won best actor for playing twin brothers Smoke and Stack. Despite other great nominations like Timothee Chalamet in “Marty Supreme,” I would say it was very much deserved. In the movie, Jordan did the impressive feat of playing two characters at the same time and depicting them both breaking apart. Over the span of the movie, he portrays emotions ranging from happiness to fear to grief.
Best International Feature Film
In a category that can be somewhat ignored, this year, there were a lot of films outside of America that were noteworthy. “The Secret Agent,” a thriller movie about the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s, and “It Was Just An Accident,” a movie about former Iranian political prisoners trying to exact revenge on their former torturer, were both frontrunners in the category. However, the award had to go to the Norwegian drama film “Sentimental Value.” The movie centers around two adult daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas) of a famous film director (Stellan Skarsgard) and the complicated relationship between them. It’s a great, heartwrenching movie with a lot of emotion and beautiful acting.
Best Casting
While this may not seem like an important category, it is unique in that it is a brand-new category, the first to be introduced since 2001. “One Battle After Another,” the winner, undeniably had good casting with veteran actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn and raising new ones to attention like Chase Infiniti. However, I was surprised that “Marty Supreme” did not win. While I expected that it got snubbed in other categories due to running against movies like “Sinners,” it felt like the perfect movie for the casting category. It had popular new great young actors like Timothee Chalamet and Odessa A’zion, alongside older actors like Gwyneth Paltrow. It also had multiple people who had never done acting before but did a great job, such as Tyler Okonma, also known as Tyler, The Creator and Kevin O’Leary.
If you want to see why these movies were held in such high regard, you can still watch them on some streaming services. “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” are on HBO Max and Prime Video.
