The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out 23 gold-plated statues once a year, and as the biggest night in the marathon that is the film awards season effectively beginning in late November and running through mid-March (March 12th, 2023 this year to be exact), the Oscars Ceremony is one typically filled with a variety of emotions, broken predictions, and questionable decision-making from AMPAS, the foremost voting body for the highest honor in American cinema. While the Oscars are a night for celebration, and many nominations will certainly deserve praise, the Academy is also famous for its most questionable decisions. If you’ve ever ended the night scratching your head after all your hopes and dreams for the biggest spotlight in film led to nothing but disappointment and you begin to channel Wooderson thinking to yourself, “well it’d be a lot cooler if they did…” then you’ve come to the right place. Last year, in an unofficial Twitter format I launched what has now become an annual column listing 20 things the Academy could do on nomination morning ranging from the likely to the impossible and everything in between that would significantly boost their cool factor. In 2022, 7/20 came true:

1. Jessie Buckley was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Lost Daughter

2. Ryusuke Hamaguchi was nominated for Best Director for Drive My Car

3. Drive My Car was nominated for Best Picture

4. House of Gucci was blanked for above the line nominations

5. Adam McKay was not nominated for Best Director for Don’t Look Up

6. Kristen Stewart was nominated for Best Lead Actress in Spencer

7. Flee became the first film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, and Best International Feature

With a one-year sample size of a 35% coolness rate (justice for Ruth Negga and Renata Reinsve missing their cool nominations), this is now the completely subjective and arbitrary standard by which we will have to judge the upcoming nominations! This rate is of course relative to the scale of likelihood by which the list is determined, but the 20 suggestions are determined with a built in range of possibility that hopefully will even the slate year-to-year. This year I focused on the positive, with only mentions of someone getting nominated. I was far more cynical last year with multiple suggestions against a nomination. That’s growth Academy! But alas, with further ado…

Here is the second annual pre-nomination report on “20 Things the Academy Would Do If They Were Cool” ranked loosely in order of likelihood from most to least likely to occur.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once is enshrined as the film of year by overperforming in nominations and winning Best Picture

Oftentimes the Best Picture winner is the film the captures the ‘zeitgeist’ of a specific year in cinema. While The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin are worthy opponents with major marketing support systems, it is hard to imagine a film better striking the narrative of 2022 than the little indie film that could, securing over $100 million in box office returns on a word-of-mouth theater run that made waves for months. As a frontrunner in Best Picture, Best Director (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), Best Original Screenplay (The Daniels), Best Lead Actress (Michelle Yeoh), and Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan), an overperformance on nomination morning would also add one (or even two) Supporting Actress nominations for Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu. Nothing this year would be cooler than seeing the “EEAAO family” take home multiple awards, including the top prize of the night.

2. “Naatu Naatu” is nominated for Best Original Song and performed live on the show

Chandrabose and M. M. Keeravani’s song is the heartbeat of this Tollywood hit with massive crossover appeal that has taken the awards season by storm with an impassioned campaign for an international film in all categories. After being shut out of the International Feature category by the nominating committee in India, support for the film has only grown and a live Naatu Naatu jam session should be exactly the type of entertainment that boosts the TV ratings the Academy is searching for.

3. Michelle Yeoh becomes the first Asian American woman to win Best Actress

The crowded field of lead actresses in 2022 has been narrowed to two: Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once and Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár in the film of her character’s namesake. Both are incredibly powerful performances deserving of award recognition, but for a race that includes a 2-time Oscar winning actress and an actress who has been consistently overlooked for her entire career, two things can be true: Blanchett’s performance is wonderful and deserving, but Yeoh’s narrative is too compelling not to root for.

4. The entire Best Actor lineup is composed of first-time nominees

According to most predictions, it appears that four slots are locked in: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Bill Nighy (Living), and Austin Butler (Elvis). The fifth slot is considered a wild card with a few possible options, but why not fill it with another first-time nominee, someone like…

5. Paul Mescal is nominated for Best Actor

There are a handful of potential options in that fifth Best Actor slot, but with the career trajectory that Paul Mescal appears to be taking, an Oscar nomination would surely continue the momentum of his career. His performance in Aftersun alongside sensational breakout Frankie Corio is delicate and nuanced, a quiet role that traditionally would not gather enough attention for a nomination, but in a year with a wild card slot available, Paul Mescal would be extra cool.

6. and Aftersun is recognized in another category…or two

One of the most critically well-received films of the year, Charlotte Wells’s directorial debut is a magnificent and devastating work of filmmaking utilizing the medium to translate emotion in a way that feels completely unique and singular. If the Academy was cool, Aftersun would see nominations in Original Screenplay, Director, or even Picture, but why not throw it in Editing too!

7. International films make nomination appearances outside of Best International Feature such as…

With the expansion of Academy membership in recent years to include more international voices, limiting international films to the Best International Feature category feels restraining, especially in a year that features a shortlist of 15 remarkable films in which any combination of five nominations would be well-earned. These films deserve to be considered in categories below AND above the line. That would be extra cool.

8. …Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave

Park’s neo-noir crime mystery also happens to be one of the most romantic films of the year. The overdue Korean auteur has never been nominated for an Oscar despite a long career of sensational work. It’s time the Academy paid its dues to Park who should be considered for Best Director in a film that should also be nominated in cinematography and editing. Few filmmakers are achieving anything close to what Park is putting to screen.

9. A surprise nomination outside of the usual suspects for Best Cinematography, maybe a genre film such as Nope or The Batman?

Two of the biggest visual spectacles of the year come from the cameras of Hoyte Van Hoytema (Nope) and Greig Fraser (The Batman). The Best Cinematography category is certainly crowded by a mix of major blockbusters and usual suspects (sorry Roger), but even ‘cooler’ choices would be the Academy taking a closer look at these two genre films shot by two of our greatest working cinematographers.

10. At least one woman is nominated for Best Director

With all of the Academy’s efforts to add diversity to their internal ranks as well as among their nominees and 2 consecutive female Best Director winners in a row, it would be incredibly ‘uncool’ to see the lineup filled with five men yet again as has been the case for an overwhelming majority of Oscars history. This year features directorial work by Sarah Polley (Women Talking), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Laura Poitras (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed), and Chinonye Chukwu (Till) among others. FYC. Recognize them.

11. More than one Asian American woman is nominated in Best Supporting Actress

With Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness), and Hong Chau (The Whale) all garnering various levels of attention at awards precursors, it is not impossible for at least two if not all three Asian American women to see their names appear in the Oscar 5. All of these actresses are essential components of their respective films and should receive as much recognition for their work as their lead counterparts. Not to mention there have only been TWELVE nominations for people of AAPI descent in the entire 94-year history of the Oscars. To call this statistic uncool would be an understatement.

12. Women Talking re-enters the conversation among the year’s best films

Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Towes’s novel of the same name has faced an awards trajectory undertaken by far too many female filmmakers: initial Best Picture hype before the forces of a patriarchal system sideline it to a single screenplay award and exclude the filmmaker from the Best Director conversation. In addition to the Best Picture deflated trajectory, the film has also lost momentum for its entire ensemble which has been consistently rewarded with Best Ensemble nominations (Critics Choice Awards, SAG) where possible but has lost all traction in rewarding any individual female performances from the likes of Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Judith Ivey. To add to the irony, Ben Whishaw as the sole male figure in the film still has Best Supporting Actor hopes alive. Vote splitting or not, this cast deserved better. So does Polley.

13. Brian Tyree Henry celebrates a year full of scene-stealing supporting work with an Oscar nomination

Henry is easily one of our most versatile and under-talked-about actors who has received his most critical acclaim for his work in TV, but has honed his performance skills in film, television, and theater. In his best year in film since his spectacular turn as Daniel Carty in If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Henry steals scenes in Bullet Train and steals hearts in Causeway, the latter of which should be attracting more Supporting Actor attention. His cool factor as James is top tier.

14. Andrea Riseborough’s last minute grassroots campaign ends in a nomination

Essentially as the clock struck midnight and Oscar nomination voting had begun, an tidal wave of celebrity campaigns for Andrea Riseborough’s performance in To Leslie took over social media giving predictors one last land mine to navigate in an already fluid category. The film is small with a micro marketing budget, but isn’t an underdog story turning into a first-time nomination exactly the type of cool energy we would love to see…?

15. but does not replace two black lead actresses: Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler

…as long as the last minute Riseborough campaign does not interfere with the potential of two brilliant performances from Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) who are as deserving as any this year. Two nominations for fearless performances from black women this year would define ‘cool’ at a time when awards criticism needs to be held accountable for its history of exclusivity.

16. Bones and All proves cannibalism isn’t too strong of a taste for Academy voters

Nobody is expecting Luca Guadagnino’s carnal road trip romance to perform on any Academy Award level platform, but the work of the entire cast and crew for this film ranging from the adapted screenplay of David Kajganich to the score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to the ensemble of stellar performances including Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, and even whatever the hell Mark Rylance is doing in this film is worthy of recognition. The cool factor of Bones and All is through the roof. Life is never dully with Sully, and neither would the Oscars be with Bones and All representation.

17. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio wins, but Phil Tippett’s Mad God is also considered for Best Animated Feature

We all know that Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is going to have a date with destiny on March 12th, and its likelihood for coolness on its own should be far higher than 17 on this list. But another stop motion film from this year should be in the same conversation because Mad God is a magnum opus from a master visionary. The fact that a distributor outside of the decade-long Disney juggernaut is going to win should be a ‘cool’ victory in itself, but a Mad God nomination would be even cooler.

18. Mia Goth gets attention in the Best Actress conversation

The Academy and avoiding the horror genre like the plague is a tale as old as time. 2022 is no different. Genre films particularly in thriller, science fiction, and horror always face an uphill battle with voters, but Mia Goth’s effort helming the first two films (and playing multiple characters) in Ti West’s sexy slasher trilogy should be recognized regardless of genre.

19. Park Hae-il and Tang Wei. Enough said.

One of the best on-screen dynamics of the year is executed between Jang Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) and Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei) in the most seductive crime drama you will ever see. Both performances are sharp and filled with a tangible chemistry that radiates nuance. The coolness of this tragic pair is arguably the highest from this entire year of film. See #8 for further details.

20. X is re-considered for Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Listen, I know it wasn’t even shortlisted and that is why it is at the bottom of this list, because impossibility is hard to overcome. But if the Academy was cool, there would be zero doubt surrounding the incredible work done by the makeup artists and hairstylists to transform Mia Goth into both Maxine and Pearl. Horror makeup for the win.  

BONUS: Marcel the shell presents an award with his shoes on because we all know this ceremony could use less violence and more stop-motion mollusks.

Article Courtesy of Danny Jarabek