The Album Is Dead: My Favorite Music of 2018

Sad to say, but 2018 was the year that I finally succumbed to the Spotify disease. I was going through all the music I listened to this year to put together my usual top-10 albums list and... I just couldn't do it. I couldn't find 10 albums that I listened to enough and enjoyed enough to put in my year-end list. In fact, I could only come up with 5 albums that I felt strongly enough about to include in a list like that—and I'm not going to do a blog post on 5 measly albums. (Those albums are great though—I'll discuss them briefly at the end of this post.) I mean, as recently as 2014 I was writing about close to 50 albums in my year-end post. Now I'm down to 5. Welcome to the streaming age. That said, there were a ton of amazing songs I felt strongly about, so I'll write about them instead for this post. The album is dead. Long live the playlist! I'm not necessarily happy about it, but that's life in 2018. Speaking of playlists, I've made two on Spotify of my favorite songs of the year—both A-sides (the best of the best) and B-sides (the best of the rest). They're both 80 minutes or less—a holdover from the days of burning a playlist on a CDR. For simplicity's sake, I've listed my top-20 songs below (with a one-song-per-artist limit) from the year that all but killed the album for me, with a short write-up for each. Enjoy!

* = seen live in 2018

20. Will Hoge – "Nikki's a Republican Now" (from My American Dream)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
There's been an encouraging trend lately of erstwhile country/Americana musicians from red states speaking out against Trump. Jason Isbell is, of course, at the forefront of that trend, but Nashville's Will Hoge isn't too far behind with this acerbic stomper from his latest EP. It's about as subtle as a Trump tweet ("She says that all lives matter and the media's a scam / The only gun control that she supports is usin' both hands"), but that's about the only way you can satirize the modern Republican party (see also: Saturday Night Live). The whole EP is full of pissed-off screeds on current events distilled through whiskey barrels and six strings ("Still a Southern Man," "Thoughts & Prayers"), but "Nikki's a Republican Now" is the rollicking highlight.

19. Ruston Kelly – "Mockingbird" (from Dying Star)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
I don't remember if it was my Release Radar or the "Pulse of Americana" playlist, but I definitely first heard this one on Spotify (almost certainly while grading at a coffee shop). It's got this amazing, slow-building intro, starting with simple acoustic guitar and then adding pedal steel, banjo, tinkling keys, and finally crescendoing harmonica before Kelly delivers a instantly memorable opening line: "Pretty wings, you’re the prettiest thing / You’re like Parker Posey in a magazine." The song that follows is a bittersweet ballad of the kind that Ryan Adams might write if he were less jaded or Cory Branan if he were less impish. I hadn't heard of Kelly (also from Nashville) before this year myself, but I have a feeling more people will be taking note in 2019—not only is he a talented songwriter, but he's married to the artist down at #13.

18. American Aquarium – "Crooked+Straight" (from Things Change)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
We're three-for-three on Americana artists so far. I promise we'll move onto another genre soon. But it was a good year for a genre I've been turning more and more to in recent years as I approach true middle-aged Whiteness. American Aquarium aren't from Nashville like the previous two artists; instead, they're from about 500 miles to the east in Raleigh, North Carolina. But like Hoge, they aren't afraid to take on what's happening in America (especially the South) today, and while their instrumentation isn't quite as lush as Kelly's, they definitely lean on pedal steel as well. If anything, they have more in common with Isbell's everyman-ness in their paeans to the struggles of everyday Americans ("Tough Folks," "Work Conquers All"). "Crooked+Straight" especially seems like it would fit right in on a Drive-By Truckers record—"I wandered through my twenties uninspired / I got my education at the end of the bar / And I traded in my youth for three chords and the truth / And the ring of an electric guitar." This is an album that would've landed in my top-10 if I had made one.

17. Frank Turner – "Blackout" (from Be More Kind)*
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Frank Turner can't be Americana because he's British, but his folksy-punk aesthetic isn't too different from a lot of Americana, I suppose. At least, it used to be that way—Be More Kind embraces a poppier sound and production than I'd been used to hearing from him. "Blackout" is a perfect example, from its jaunty riff and bouncy bass line to the electronic flourishes and resounding chorus—"Are you afraid of the darkness? / I'm afraid of the darkness too." The song isn't as obviously about 2018 as, say, "Make America Great Again," but that sentiment is certainly valid these days. Unfortunately, that studio sheen tends to magnify Turner's overly sentimental tendencies on several songs, resulting in an album that suffers from a bit of mawkishness. That said, I saw Turner live after both The Menzingers and Lucero—two of my favorite recent bands—opened for him, and I'd be lying if I said Turner didn't put on the best set. And "Blackout" was, of course, the high point of the set.

16. Elvis Costello and The Imposters – "Suspect My Tears" (from Look Now)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
I'm probably not as familiar with Elvis Costello as I should be (especially his stuff from the last 30ish years), but I'm glad I gave Look Now a cursory spin when I was catching up on 2018 releases a month or so ago. It's probably the most immaculately produced album of the year, with a brassy, big-band-esque sound that fits Costello's trademark nasally vocals much better than I thought it would. The album sounds like a lost collection of pop standards—which makes sense, given that Costello worked with Burt Bacharach and Carole King on several songs. One that especially seems like it it could have been an AM radio hit is "Suspect My Tears," a half-ironic (duh, it's Costello) ballad where he croons over a gorgeous string arrangement with female backing vocals and note-perfect keys and horns. It's a beautiful song, and I hope that, somewhere, Bill Murray is singing it in a karaoke bar.

15. Matthew Logan Vasquez – "Ladonna" (from Texas Murder Ballads)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | *lyrics not available*
When you come across an album (technically an EP) called Texas Murder Ballads on Spotify, you're not *not* going to listen to it, right? That's exactly what I did, and it was as advertised—5 songs and 17+ minutes of delightfully dark story-songs about meth cooks, crooked cops, and other assorted vagrants and outcasts strewn across the shadiest corners of the Lone Star State. The music is as rough and dirty as the lyrics, equal parts Texas rockabilly and California surf rock (with a splash of psychedelic rock as well), rife with incendiary guitar riffs wailing over propulsive rhythms. It's the kind of stuff I imagine being played at the bars in the first season of True Detective. My favorite is "Ladonna," a dingy haunted house dirge with an absolutely scintillating riff that sounds like ZZ Top by way of Rob Zombie. If you like either of those things, or anything in between, give the EP a try.

14. CHVRCHES – "Deliverance" (from Love Is Dead)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
It's been a bit of a sausage fest so far, but here's our first female (or female-led) artist. (And just wait until you see my top-3.) CHVRCHES is always a band I've liked more than loved, and while I don't expect that to change after this year, "Deliverance" is an absolute BANGER. I've always found Lauren Mayberry's voice to be beautiful, and the massive chorus of "Deliverance" is a perhaps the most perfect showcase for it yet devised. She breaks through the icy synth lines and cool, low delivery of the verses with a soaring "You better hold on, hold on, hold on" that dovetails into a mesmerizing "Is it deliver-iver-iverance?" The vocals are just *pristine*, and the album as a whole is perhaps their most straightforwardly poppy release yet. More like this, please.

13. Kacey Musgraves – "High Horse" (from Golden Hour)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Speaking of erstwhile country and straightforwardly poppy, we have Kacey Musgraves and her slinky, country-gone-disco number "High Horse." I can't claim to have listened to her debut album, but I did quite like 2015's Pageant Material, especially "Biscuits." Golden Hour (another one that likely would've made my top-10) keeps the country trappings of her first two albums (twangy guitar, pedal steel again, vaguely western imagery) but blends it with a pop sensibility and brings her wry wit more to the forefront. Songs like "Slow Burn," "Lonely Weekend," and "Space Cowboy" seem like a natural progression, but "High Horse" seems a potential paradigm shift for her—audacious yet assured, glossy yet genuine. This may be the song that catapults her into the mainstream stratosphere—and her next album might just seal her as the next big thing.

12. Red City Radio – "In the Shadows" (from SkyTigers)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Oklahoma City's Red City Radio just know how to fuckin' shred, man. Their 5-song EP (it was a strong year for EPs, apparently), the questionably titled SkyTigers, is a step forward in technical prowess from their previous tough-guy Midwest pop-punk stylings. Each of the 5 songs showcases blistering guitarwork, including several string-shredding solos, and some songs surprisingly have keys and horns as well. There are two absolute monster jams here—the uber-anthemic "Rebels," which made my (unpublished) best songs of 2017 list, and "In the Shadows," a near-five-minute scorcher on battling one's demons, figuratively and, perhaps, literally. It's got an insane build that doesn't let up until singer Garrett Dale's final exhalation after guitarist Ryan Donovan's fingers have, presumably, melted away. I missed these guys when they came to PHX back in May (with The Lawrence Arms no less), and I've been kicking myself ever since. Hopefully they'll come back in 2019.

11. Strung Out – "Town of Corazon" (from Black Out the Sky)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
If you attended the Warped Tour in the '90s or listened to any of the various punk compilations that were out at the time, you're undoubtedly familiar with Strung Out. (If you're not, and you like SoCal punk, go listen to Twisted By Design right now.) But it's probably been 15 years since I listened to a new Strung Out record. So what are they doing on this list? Well, in 2018, they did what I think all punk bands should do: they put out an acoustic album (also technically an EP). Like Alkaline Trio, Dustin Kensrue, Yellowcard, and so many others before them, going acoustic allowed the band's songwriting chops and musicianship to really shine. Strung Out has always been a bit more naturally talented than most other '90s punk bands, which Black Out the Sky shows, especially "Town of Corazon." It might sound strange for a punk band, but it's a really pretty song, with gentle strumming, a nifty riff, lovely harmonies, and an uplifting chorus. It's a perfect sing-along song, whether alone in your car or (I imagine) around a campfire with your best friends.

10. Lucero – "Long Way Back Home" (from Among the Ghosts)*
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
A new Lucero album is always a big deal for me. As mentioned above, they're one of my very favorite recent bands. Ben Nichols is an incredible songwriter (and quite good singer when he's not sloshed), and the rest of the band are underappreciated musicians, especially guitarist Brian Venable and keyboardist (among other instruments) Rick Steff. Among the Ghosts is another collection of mostly downtempo sad bastard songs, similar to 2015's (slightly superior) All a Man Should Do in its reliance on more autobiographical songwriting and more optimistic (for Lucero) worldview on several songs. It's a great record—my second favorite of the year, actually. But I just haven't latched onto that one standout song yet, hence the #10 ranking here. I'm sure it'll come to me the more time I spend with the record. In the meantime, I included "Long Way Back Home" on this list because it's 1) a kickass jam, and 2) it's got a great music video directed by Ben's brother Jeff (of Take Shelter and Mud fame) and starring Michael Shannon, Garrett Hedlund, and Scoot McNairy. Here's hoping for more Nichols brothers collaborations in the future.

9. The Decemberists – "Rusalka, Rusalka / The Wild Rushes" (from I'll Be Your Girl)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
The Decemberists can be a hard band to pin down sometimes—but that also makes them one of the most interesting bands out there. Consider the stylistic gulf between 2009's prog-folk freakout concept album The Hazards of Love and 2011's quiet, Neil Young-tinged folk suite The King Is Dead (perhaps their best). Next, 2015 brought their poppiest, most polished record yet, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. What did they follow that up with? A darkly poppy record influenced by '80s new wave and synthpop, of course. Songs like "Severed" and "Cutting Stone" sound like they were recorded with the band wearing shoulder pads. But it wouldn't be a Decemberists album without an 8-minute, multi-part, mythology-influenced jam. "Rusalka, Rusalka / The Wild Rushes" is the album's penultimate song, a massive, macabre epic that must be awesome live—towering vocals, enchanting harmonies, orchestral instrumentation, thunderous percussion. But, unfortunately, I missed them when they came through PHX this year. Maybe next time. I just hope this one makes their permanent live rotation.

8. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – "Keep a Little Soul" (from Tom Petty: An American Treasure)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
I'm cheating a little bit here, as this obviously wasn't written or recorded in this century, much less this year. But it was actually released this year, so I have no problem including it on this list. "Keep a Little Soul," the first single from this year's Tom Petty boxed set, was originally recorded during the Long After Dark sessions, and I can confidently say it is better than anything on that album, except for maybe "Change of Heart." (Although "Straight into Darkness" is also pretty great.) I am convinced "Keep a Little Soul" would have been a huge hit if it had been released in 1982. I'm not sure why it wasn't included on the album, but I'm glad we get to hear it now. It's the band at their most upbeat, with Benmont Tench's jangly keys taking center stage and Tom almost seeming to channel Van Morrison in the jubilant chorus. It's fucking great. The rest of American Treasure is well worth the listen, with other great outtakes (I also like "Walkin' from the Fire" from 1984) and alternate versions of Petty classics (I'm partial to the new version of Wildflowers' "Wake Up Time"). I hope it's not the last we'll ever hear from Tom, but if it is, it'll at least keep fans occupied for a long time (it's 63 songs). R.I.P., Tom.

7. Courtney Barnett – "Sunday Roast" (from Tell Me How You Really Feel)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Now we're getting into rare territory—all the songs from here on out garnered consideration for #1. On the whole, Tell Me How You Really Feel didn't grab me the way Barnett's previous two albums did—although that's probably due more to my music listening habits than any particular issue with the album. But album closer "Sunday Roast"—a charming ode to the people you keep closest—seized me something fierce when I first heard it, and it hasn't let go ever since. The atmospheric guitarwork (backed by subtle keys) just envelops you, priming you for Barnett's soft, vulnerable delivery—a big departure from her often acerbic songwriting persona and singing voice. But what makes the song is the sensational extended outro: "Keep on keepin' on, y'know you're not alone / And I know all your stories but I'll listen to them again / And if you move away y'know I'll miss your face / It's all the same to me, y'know it's all the same to me." It's an unexpectedly buoyant note to end the album on, and a much-needed shot of warmth here in the cold of 2018.

6. Brandi Carlile – "Party of One" (from By the Way, I Forgive You)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
This song has a lot in common with the Barnett song—they're both resonant album closers (and track #10s) written by one of the best songwriters we have (and who both happen to be lesbian). And, like the Barnett album, the Carlile album didn't have quite the same impact on me as her previous album from 2015. Freaky, right? But whereas "Sunday Roast" lifts your spirits and warms your heart, "Party of One" threatens to break it. And I'd be lying if I said that it didn't do just that to me a couple times this year. It's a slow, sad, painful song about the sometimes heartrending difficulties that come with being in—staying in, really—a relationship. Lines like "you know I love you still / but I am tired" and references to "your eggshells and your 'I' statements and your weaponized words" can just level you if they catch you in the wrong headspace. But the song isn't without hope, as the outro of Carlile singing "I am yours" over an elegant arrangement of strings and keys can attest. It's just a stunning, stunning song.

5. Childish Gambino – "This Is America" (released as a single)*
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
As everyone knows, the music video for this song is absolutely incredible, rife with symbolism, social commentary, and undeniably hypnotic dancing. It's a true breakthrough for an artist I've been a fan of for a long, long time (fan since "Bro Rape," yo!). But I also heard a lot of, "Yeah, the song is good, but the video is way better." And that's true to a point—the video is transcendent, a cultural touchstone, perhaps the (not exaggerating here) pinnacle of the form—but that shouldn't diminish the quality of the song. It's a songwriting marvel, with its bifurcated structure that (almost) seamlessly fuses Gambino's most mature rap verses yet with a pointedly Kanye-esque soul/gospel refrain. (Note that Gambino himself guns down the choir in the video.) Gone is the posturing, try-hard Gambino, whose rhymes and albums were at times as clumsy as they were catchy. In his place is a swaggering, sexual R&B/funk demigod who can boldly proclaim "This Is America" and be *right*. His next evolution—after leaving the Childish Gambino moniker behind—should be fascinating.

4. Kanye West – "Ghost Town" (from ye)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Unlike Childish Gambino, Kanye West did not have a good 2018. Between his MAGA-hat-wearing nonsense, his slavery comments, and middling reviews for ye, Kanye is closer than ever to losing his place atop the zeitgeist and his once-unimpeachable standing as a critical darling. We'll see what Yandhi brings in (hopefully) 2019, but in the meantime, I'm here to say that ye, which does have its missteps (notably "Violent Crimes"), is actually pretty decent. (As is its companion piece, Kids See Ghosts.) "I Thought About Killing You" and "Yikes" show Kanye candidly discussing his well-publicized mental health issues, and are solid tracks in their own right. But the climax of album is "Ghost Town," an urgent, brooding opus featuring Kanye's best verse of the album, a profoundly affecting chorus from Kid Cudi, and a magnificent outro from 070 Shake. The last minute and a half or so of this song might be the most powerful musical moment of the year. If you don't get chills on her first "I feel kind of freeeeeee!", you might be some kind of musical sociopath. The ending is just *perfect*. It's the kind of song that demands you replay it as soon as it's over—and I have several times this year and will continue to do so as the years go on, whatever happens to Kanye's standing in the culture.

3. Hop Along – "Prior Things" (from Bark Your Head Off, Dog)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Hop Along's Frances Quinlan has one of the most distinctive, acrobatic voices I've ever heard, and it's on full display in "Prior Things," the song I listened to the most in 2018. Nearly six minutes long, "Prior Things" is built on an insistent string arrangement, with acoustic strumming providing texture and slide guitar adding melancholy accents. But Quinlan's dexterous voice shimmies, glides, and tumbles over it all, as impressive a display of vocal gymnastics as anyone not named Björk. Within the first two lines, she explores more vocal topography than most singers do on an entire record. Throughout the song (and the whole record), she stretches words, inflects counterintuitively, and adds unusual emphasis on certain syllables—but it's all done with a sense of purpose, like it was the only way to sing that particular line to impart that particular emotion. On "Prior Things," she sings about struggling with her self worth—a universal sentiment delivered in an utterly singular way. We'll be hearing a lot more from Quinlan and her band, I suspect. (Note: There is no video for "Prior Things," but "How Simple" is nearly as good of a song, and the video is phenomenal. Check it out.)

2. Soccer Mommy – "Scorpio Rising" (from Clean)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
"Scorpio Rising" starts deceptively simply—the first verse is 20-year-old Sophie Allison plaintively singing about kissing in parked cars over wispy guitar and spare keys. This is a sad song about young lovers, yes, but that's not all that's going on here. The percussion kicks in just before the second verse starts, and the vocals and guitar kick up an octave as Allison sings about Coca Cola and her crush's new flame. Again, more seemingly juvenile stuff, but it's suffused with a wistfulness that's instantly familiar to anyone who's had a failed relationship (that is, just about everybody). Then the chorus hits you like an ice pick to the heart: "I don't think of my life / Anywhere but in your arms tonight / Won't say it this time / Can't even look back in your eyes." But it's all just a setup for the truly devastating third verse, when Allison goes way bigger than summer flings and losing your crush: "And I'm just a victim of changing planets / My Scorpio rising and my parents." Sometimes, things just don't fucking work and there's nothing you can do about it. It's no one's fault—genetics, fate, whatever. That's the hardest thing to grapple with, to understand. "What could I have done differently?" Nothing. It's gutting. And Allison is writing songs about that feeling at just 20. I'd be jealous if I weren't too busy being stunned into slack-jawed submission. The rest of the album—which builds musically and thematically to "Scorpio Rising"—is one of the best of the year. Oh yeah, and Allison is from—you guessed it—Nashville as well. What a year for the Music City. Maybe I'll finally visit it in 2019.

1. Metric – "Now or Never Now" (from Art of Doubt)
Spotify Link | YouTube Video | Lyrics
Mental health issues, gun violence, failed relationships—man, these past few songs have been downers. Brilliant songs, but downers. Fortunately, Emily Haines and Metric are here to make sure we don't end 2018 on a down note. "Now or Never Now" is is a glittery, gleeful gem of a song, a synth-laden salute to putting all the bullshit in the rearview and and moving forward with positivity. Clocking in at over six minutes (at least the obviously superior non-radio-edit), it starts with a simple synth line that immediately worms its way into your head, making your head bob reflexively. More synth and percussion are slowly added until Haines's perfect voice slithers in around the 1:30 mark. From there, it's more slow, beautiful, uplifting build for five minutes. There's no chorus here (unless you count a particularly marvelous repeating guitar line), no rising intensity then release, just a constant thrum of euphoria that ends with the affirming repetition of "Because it's now or never now." It's a perfect song, and the centerpiece of the best album of the year, an amazingly accomplished rumination on fame, fear, and femininity. I didn't get to see Metric this year, but I already have tickets for their show in PHX in March. So not only did they give us the best album of 2018, but a reason to look forward to 2019 as well. That's more than enough to get me through the end of this very trying year. Maybe the album isn't dead after all.

Bonus: Top 5 Albums
Speaking of which, here are those five albums I mentioned at the top (with a one-sentence summary).

5. The Decemberists – I'll Be Your Girl. New Decemberists is always a good thing, even if they'll probably never reach the highs of The Crane Wife or The King Is Dead again.
4. Hop Along – Bark Your Head Off, Dog – I would listen to Frances Quinlan sing about anything, even if I don't always understand her lyrics.
3. Soccer Mommy – Clean. The first part of the above statement applies to Sophie Allison as well—even if I understand the lyrics all too well sometimes.
2. Lucero – Among the Ghosts. This was my #1 until Metric came along—Ben Nichols practically rents space in my aesthetic wheelhouse (it's a pretty nice one bedroom with a built-in bar).
1. Metric – Art of Doubt. It took me a bit to come around to Pagans in Vegas; not so Art of Doubt, which floored me from the first listen.

Even if I didn't fall in love with a ton of albums, 2018 was a strong year for music—probably even stronger than 2017. I look forward to hearing what 2019 has to offer, even if my listening habits are ever-changing.

Get Out of the Water in Missouri: 2018 Oscars Precidtions

I think this is my tenth(!) year doing Oscar predictions on one website or another, and this is one of the more wide-open Best Picture races I can remember. The last time I can remember a true three-horse race was 2016—but even then, The Revenant was the clear favorite over eventual winner Spotlight and The Big Short. (I'm still glad The Revenant didn't win, but there were better choices than Spotlight.) This year, I suppose The Shape of Water is the frontrunner, but it does't seem to be as far ahead as The Revenant was—Three Billboards and Get Out are right on its heels. As of this writing (almost midnight on Friday), I don't know which film I'm going to predict for the big prize. I suppose I'll use this write-up to sort out my thoughts. As usual, I've seen all the major-category nominees, so in theory I should have a good handle on things—and, hey, I got 7/8 in those categories last year. (And I was damn happy to be wrong about Moonlight!) So, we'll start, as the ceremony usually does, with the supporting categories and go from there.

Gold = predicted winner

Best Supporting Actress
Mary J. Blige – Mudbound
Allison Janney – I, Tonya
Lesley Manville – Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer – The Shape of Water

SPOILER: My predictions in the acting categories are going to be pretty boring, as there are big favorites in each. That starts with Allison Janney here. She's won just about every precursor she's been up for and probably already has her speech prepared. She's great in I, Tonya—delightfully disdainful and terrifically trashy—but her closest challenger, Metcalf, gave a much better performance. I'll be hoping for an upset here, but won't be too bummed if (when) it doesn't happen.

My Non-Existent Vote: Metcalf

Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins – The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer – All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

There shouldn't be any surprises here—Sam Rockwell should come away with his first Oscar. I should be ecstatic about this possibility—Rockwell is legit one of my favorite actors—but I'll definitely feel a twinge of regret that Dafoe's superior performance in The Florida Project didn't take the gold. It's one of the best performances of the year and as important to its film as Mahershala Ali's was to Moonlight last year. (I suppose you could say the same for Rockwell and Billboards, but it's nowhere near as good a film as The Florida Project.)

My Non-Existent Vote: Dafoe

Best Actress
Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie – I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird
Meryl Streep – The Post

This is one of the easier calls of the night: Frances McDormand will win for Billboards. It'll be a much-deserved win, too, as her fiery, flawed Mildred Hayes is one of the best characters and performances of the year. Her speech will almost certainly be one of the more memorable of the night. It's just too bad we won't get to hear a speech from Sally Hawkins, whose character didn't have had a voice in The Shape of Water and who will be similarly silent on Oscar night in spite of giving the best lead actress performance of the year.

My Non-Existent Vote: Hawkins

Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet – Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out
Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington – Roman J. Israel, Esq.

This is the actual easiest call of the night in the major categories: Gary Oldman will take home his first Oscar for his blustering, blubbery portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. It's nowhere near his best work—hell, give me even Jim Gordon or Drexl Spivey any day—but I don't feel strongly enough about the other nominees to get too worked up about it. Chalamet is probably his closest competition, but upstarts don't usually fare to well in this category (unlike Actress), and I could imagine a universe where DDL wins for his (supposed) final film role, but either would be a monumental upset.

My Non-Existent Vote: Chalamet

Best Adapted Screenplay
James Ivory – Call Me by Your Name
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber – The Disaster Artist
Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green – Logan
Aaron Sorkin – Molly's Game
Virgil Williams and Dee Rees – Mudbound

We're 5-for-5 on easy calls: this should be James Ivory for CMBYN. It's easily the best script of the bunch, and giving the 89-year-old his first Oscar would be a helluva moment on Oscar night. If there was going to be an upset here (there won't), it would probably be Mudbound, although I certainly wouldn't mind if Logan were to get the call (it won't).

My Non-Existent Vote: Ivory

Best Original Screenplay
Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor – The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Ah, finally a category with some, ahem, drama! Other than The Big Sick (which was great, by the way!), each of the nominees has a shot. Peele won the WGA, McDonagh won the Globe, del Toro is the Best Director frontrunner, and Greta Gerwig is Greta freaking Gerwig. This is a tough call, but the WGA is a more reliable precursor than the Globe, so I'm going with Jordan Peele here. Ozmataz Buckshank, Oscar Winner, has a great ring to it, don't you think?

My Non-Existent Vote: Peele

Best Director
Christopher Nolan – Dunkirk
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson – Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro – The Shape of Water

I don't really see an upset happening here—Guillermo del Toro will nab his first Oscar, making it 4 in 5 years for Mexican directors. (Where's your fucking wall, Donny??) I'd have voted for Peele, Nolan, or Gerwig over del Toro (PTA would've been a toss-up), but The Shape of Water landed in my top-10 for the year, so I'll be good with it if (when) he wins. And hopefully a win will give him the cachet/cash to actually make that At the Mountains of Madness adaptation.

My Non-Existent Vote: Peele

Best Picture
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

All right, I guess I have to make a prediction. I suppose I'll just get it out of the way and say I don't think Three Billboards is winning. I said it when it won the Globe and I'm saying it again now. It's a well-made film, full of great performances and memorable dialogue and some undeniably powerful moments... but it's also completely tone deaf to race in America and, probably more relevant to this particular conversation, missing a Best Director nomination. Just doesn't seem like a winner to me. So it comes down to Get Out and The Shape of Water. Water is the clear frontrunner, with DGA and PGA wins, plus it's the overall nominations leader—by far, with 13. Get Out doesn't have much in the way of precursors—no SAG, no Globe, no BAFTA (Billboards won all those). What it *does* have is the zeitgeist, much in the same way Moonlight had last year. So I guess the question is whether the Academy has truly changed after last year's Moonlight upset. I say... it hasn't (at least not for a "genre film"). Even though it's a movie where a chick literally fucks a fish-man, The Shape of Water also got 9 more nominations than Get Out, suggesting broader support. And the Academy isn't exactly known for timeliness. Am I preemptively girding myself against disappointment? Probably. But I'm betting against the Academy getting it right two years in a row. That said, if Get Out wins, we'll know there has been a true sea change in the Academy, which would be very exciting.

My Non-Existent Vote: Get Out

Now, let's knock out the rest of the categories quick-like...

Best Animated Film 
Coco – Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson
What, you though Boss Baby would win? There's not an easier call on the board—Coco will win. And deservedly so—Pixar's latest is great, a visual feast and a good story to boot.
My Non-Existent Vote: Coco

Best Foreign Language Film
A Fantastic Woman – Sebastián Lelio
So say the internet prognosticators. I wouldn't know—I've only seen one nominee (The Square), which is better than most years (and more than last year). The Square was pretty good though.
My Non-Existent Vote: The Square

Best Documentary Feature
Faces Places – Agnès Varda, JR, and Rosalie Varda
A lot of outlets seem to be going with Icarus or here, but I'm going with the French master over the Netflix upstarts. Perhaps I'm a year late to the streaming takeover, but so be it.
My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (have not seen any of the nominees)

Best Documentary Short
Edith+Eddie – Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright
Once again going with the internet sharps and against Netflix (Heroin(e)). This is the hill I'm going to die on, apparently.
My Non-Existent Vote: Abstain (have not seen any of the nominees)

Best Animated Short
Lou – Dave Mullins and Dana Murray
I'm seeing a lot of support for Kobe's Dear Basketball online... and, really? I saw all of them and that was the clear worst. Lou wasn't great, but Pixar won last year for a worse film, so why not?
My Non-Existent Vote: Revolting Rhymes – Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer

Best Live Action Short
DeKalb Elementary – Reed Van Dyk
This dramatization of a near school shooting seems to be the frontrunner, despite its heavy-handedness. Any of the rest would be a more worthy winner, especially My Nephew Emmett.
My Non-Existent Vote: My Nephew Emmett – Kevin Wilson Jr.

Best Score
Alexandre Desplat – The Shape of Water
If this doesn't win—and it's far from the best of the nominees—I'll feel a whole lost less confident about my Best Picture pick. My favorite was Burwell's, I guess, but Greenwood's was the best.
My Non-Existent Vote: Jonny Greenwood – Phantom Thread

Best Original Song
"Remember Me" – Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (from Coco)
There seems to be some support for the Greatest Showman song, and it would be awesome if Sufjan was an Oscar winner, but it's tough to bet against songs from animated films... so I won't.
My Non-Existent Vote: "Mystery of Love" – Sufjan Stevens (from Call Me By Your Name)

Best Cinematography
Roger Deakins – Blade Runner 2049
ROGER MOTHER FUCKING DEAKINS LEGIT ABOUT TO WIN HIS FIRST OSCAR. AT LEAST A COUPLE DECADES LATE BUT OH WELL. (DON'T YOU RUIN THIS, DUNKIRK.)
My Non-Existent Vote: DEAKINS

Best Editing
Lee Smith – Dunkirk
Theres's lot of support for Baby Driver, which would be a great winner—Edgar Wright's movies are always immaculately edited. But Smith is a virtuoso who is overdue—and Dunkirk is a mastercourse.
My Non-Existent Vote: Smith

Best Production Design
Dennis Gassner and Alessandra Querzola – Blade Runner 2049
Water is a real contender here, but Blade Runner was much more impressive, and I think it will stick out more to voters. (But a Water win here would mean very good things for its Picture chances.)
My Non-Existent Vote: Gassner and Querzola

Best Costume Design
Mark Bridges – Phantom Thread
Gee, I wonder if the Best Picture nominee about making fancy clothes will win the category for Best Costume Design? (If an upset happens, it'll likely be The Shape of Water.)
My Non-Existent Vote: Bridges

Best Makeup And Hairstyling
Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick – Darkest Hour
This is right up there with Coco for sure things—the sculptors of Oldman's Churchill jowls will take home the statue.
My Non-Existent Vote: Tsuji, Malinowski, and Sibbick

Best Sound Mixing
Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, and Gary A. Rizzo – Dunkirk
War movies always seem to do well in this category (Hacksaw Ridge won last year), and Rizzo and Weingarten are previous winners, so Dunkirk seems like a pretty safe bet.
My Non-Existent Vote: Weingarten, Landaker, and Rizzo

Best Sound Editing
Richard King and Alex Gibson – Dunkirk
I'm not going to try to overthink things—gonna pick one film for both sound categories and hopefully get at least one right. But Water and, especially, Baby Driver could easily spoil either category.
My Non-Existent Vote: King and Gibson

Best Visual Effects
Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist – War for the Planet of the Apes
Blade Runner 2049 is also very deserving (that threesome though), but the Apes crew has never won despite taking motion capture to the next level. They should win for the final entry in the trilogy.
My Non-Existent Vote: Letteri, Barrett, Lemmon, and Whist

I don't have a ton of confidence in a lot of these picks—I'd settle for 18/24 or so, as well as a second Oscar pool win in a row. And here's hoping Get Out can pull off the upset!

Sunken Places and Sinking States: Films of 2017

 As I write this, the 2018 Oscar nominees were announced this morning. (It will likely be some time before I actually finish this post though, haha. *EDIT: It was almost exactly a month.*) Oscar nomination morning is one of my favorite days of the year—film nerd Christmas morning!—but it usually comes with some consternation. Genre films were snubbed! Too many Oscar-bait films! My favorite film wasn't recognized! This year was a bit different, however—Academy voters actually did a decent job, a quibble or two notwithstanding. (How did The Florida Project not get a Best Picture nomination?!) But just because I have fewer grievances with the actual Oscar nominations this year doesn't mean I don't think I can do better. So, for the third year in a row, I'm handing out fake awards for my favorite films, performances, scripts, and scores (new category!) of the year. We'll start, as the actual Oscars themselves usually do, with the supporting performances.

Gold = winner
* = nominated for a real Oscar

Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Holly Hunter – The Big Sick
Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird*
Bria Vinaite – The Florida Project
Allison Williams – Get Out

I don't really have any issues with the actual Oscar field. Spencer is very good but her character isn't as integral to her film as the ones listed here, and Janney's/Manville's performances have similar but opposite issues—Janney's is too loud, while Manville's is too quiet. Tune Janney down and Manville up and they might have made the cut here. (I have not yet seen Blige in Mudbound.) If Elizabeth Marvel was given more to do in The Meyerowitz Stories, she might've also made the cut here, but her character was unfortunately vastly underwritten.

• The lone holdover from the real-life Oscars is Metcalf, and I'll be rooting hard for her to win over Janney on Oscar night. Her embattled, embittered performance is one of the year's finest in any category—especially her emotional reckoning at the airport. Just wow. Also, a shoutout to one of the best parts of Roseanne.
• Probably just missing out on a real Oscar nom was Hunter, who's a tour-de-force as a worried/wrathful mother in The Big Sick. Her rant at the comedy show is one of my favorite scenes of the year. Her snub is one of the other major quibbles I had with the real nominations.
• Dern's big moment in The Last Jedi is another one of my favorite scenes—I remember my jaw actually dropping both times I saw it. She deftly combines traditionally masculine martial confidence with (also traditionally) feminine warmth and creates an instantly legendary Star Wars character.
• Vinaite is so good in The Florida Project that it seems like they just plucked her out of one of those shitty motels and dropped her into the movie. (Not quite—but she was actually discovered on Instagram.) I had expected more real awards buzz for her, but nada except for a few film critic award nominations, which is a shame.
• Also curiously lacking in awards consideration was Williams (unless you count Best Villain at the VMAs). Her role is doubly great, considering that her character is acting for 2/3 of the movie. The way she chameleons when she's revealed as a villain is astounding—everything from her eyes to her smile to her body language completely shifts in a split second. It's absolutely terrifying. (And that milk scene though. It gives me a fear boner.)

I very nearly went with Laura Dern for this category, but she has so much less screen time than the two it eventually came down to—Hunter and Metcalf. I still think Hunter's scene in the comedy club is the strongest scene of the two performances, but her character was slightly more ancillary to the movie than Laurie Metcalf's. She has a decent shot at a real Oscar too. I just wish it could have been the same debate on Oscar night.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project*

Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri*

Patrick Stewart – Logan

Michael Stuhlbarg – Call Me by Your Name

Jason Sudeikis – Colossal

The top two contenders for the real Oscar also make the cut here. Jenkins and, especially, Harrelson are great in their films, but the three new contenders here had performances that stood out more to me. I haven's seen the always-excellent Plummer in Money yet, but I will rectify that soon. (Or maybe I'll just watch, I dunno, The Usual Suspects or K-Pax instead.) There were also several other excellent supporting actors that I considered here—Armie Hammer in CMBYN (see below), Michael Keaton in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Barry Keoghan in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Bill mother fucking Camp in Molly's Game, Bill Nighy in Their Finest, etc., etc.

• The Oscar race is looking like it'll be between Rockwell and Dafoe, and Rockwell has all the momentum in the world (zing!) right now. He's long been a favorite actor of mine (he was bomb Ninja Turtles, yo!), and he's very good in a very... tricky role in Billboards. I have several issues with the movie (which I still think is very good), but none of them are with Rockwell. I'll be quite happy if he comes away with the Oscar.
• The same goes for Dafoe, who might have the most range of any actor working today, from transformative Day-Lewis-esque performances to batshit insane Nic Cagian caricatures. His role in Florida is definitely one of the former. It takes a special talent to be able to seamlessly blend in with a cast of mostly non-professional actors, and Dafoe pulls it off with deeply humanistic aplomb.
• I was sure that either Armie Hammer (a near-miss here) or Stuhlbarg would score an Oscar nom for their oustanding work in CMBYN, but they must've canceled each other's votes out or something—I don't see why neither of them wouldn't get a nomination otherwise. Of the two, Stuhlbarg's work is more indelible. A perimeter presence throughout most of the film, he delivers the monologue of the year toward the end—a masterwork full of naturalistic parental warmth.
• I saw Logan on its opening weekend and walked out of the theater thinking that Stewart had a shot at his first-ever Oscar nom. He actually got a little bit of a buzz, but it wasn't to be. He doesn't miss out here, however, for one of my favorite performances of the year. He takes a character he's played in a half-dozen movies and suffuses it with pathos and a sense of finality, ending his portrayal of Charles Xavier with a truly iconic performance.
• The most surprising name on here is Sudeikis's for sure. But the former SNL funnyman and usual rom-com nice guy gave a uncannily chilling and gradually menacing turn in one of the year's strangest films, Colossal. It takes a good 40 minutes to an hour for you to realize he's the villain (at least for me, a straight male), but from that point on, he's utterly magnetic and frightening, a too-true portrait of toxic beta-masculinity. Give this man more villainous roles, please.

I went back and forth on Dafoe vs. Stewart quite a bit before I finally settled on Willem Dafoe. His performance didn't have the dementia-aided fireworks or beatific death scene like Stewart's, but he was the glue that held one of the best movies of the year together, a big-hearted moral compass who made a conversation with birds one of my favorite scenes of the year.

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain – Molly's Game
Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water*
Frances McDormand – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri*
Haley Lu Richardson – Columbus
Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird*

This field is stacked, much better than the Best Actor field. Margot Robbie was a near-miss here, as was Jennifer Lawrence for mother!. (Whatever kind of cultural cachet the Razzies once had is now gone after they nominated her for a Razzie—and I'm generally not a huge J-Law fan.) Meryl Streep, like everyone, was fine in The Post, but she wasn't considered at all here. The two new entrants were far superior in my opinion.

• Richardson was a new name for me this year. I first saw her in Split, where she gave a decent scream queen performance. But her name didn't really resonate for me until I saw her in Columbus, one of the year's quieter films. But her performance as a wannabe architect with a meth-addict mother is one of the most revelatory performances of the year, a work of unmitigated empathy and optimism. Sometimes, there's not much you can do but try to dance your pain away.
• Chastain has been one of my favorite actresses since I first saw her in Take Shelter—which she should have been nominated for, but wasn't. And I still think she was robbed for Zero Dark Thirty in 2013. It's one of my favorite lead actress performances of the past few years. She's almost as good in Molly's Game, combining steely professional confidence and an internal brokenness all while keeping up with Aaron Sorkin's verbal pyrotechnics.
• Somehow, Ronan, at 23, has had a longer film career than Chastain—Atonement was in 2007, the year before Chastain's first film role. She also has one more Oscar nomination—for Atonement, Brooklyn, and, now Lady Bird. (She was robbed for Hanna!) If she keeps this up, she might have more nominations than Streep before all is said and done. Although she probably doesn't have a chance on Oscar night, she'd be a more than deserving winner for Lady Bird, where she completely melts into the titular role, making you believe she's just an angsty high school senior rather than the jetsetting professional actress she's now been for over 10 years.
• Her main competition on Oscar night will be Hawkins and McDormand, the latter of whom is the only previous winner on my list. Her work in Billboards is ferocious and inimitable, full of barely restrained invective and soul-shaking grief. It's impressive, impressive work and will probably net McDormand her second Oscar (the first being for a much different performance in Fargo). You won't hear any complaints from me if/when she wins.
• The same goes for Hawkins (or Ronan, or even Robbie... any of the nominees but Streep really—and, I swear, I like Meryl Streep!). Hawkins' performance in The Shape of Water is the opposite of McDormand's in many ways: she's a mute, so she can't speak, and while she does have a well of resolve and anger, she conveys love and kindness through dextrous facial tics and expressive eyes. It's extraordinary work, and would likely get my vote if I were an Academy member...

...which obviously means that Sally Hawkins is my personal pick for Best Actress this year. You don't usually have to fuck a fish-man to win this award, but, hey, sometimes it helps. That she was able to do so and make it believable might be the acting achievement of the year. It might even be enough to win the film Best Picture—it could very well have been a disaster without someone like Hawkins in the lead role. Or, perhaps, she's the only person who could have played it?

Best Actor

Timothée Chalamet – Call Me by Your Name*

Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread*

Michael Fassbender – Alien: Covenant

Hugh Jackman – Logan

Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out*

Like Best Actress, three out of five of the real nominees also made my list. Of the two "snubs," Denzel was fine in the... less-than-fine (but still decent) Roman J. Israel, Esq., and, honestly, I didn't think much of Oldman's work in Darkest Hour. He's under so much makeup and prosthetics that you can't even tell it's him (which isn't acting), and he mostly blusters and bloviates with the same kind of scene-chewing intensity that he does in Luc Besson films—and he's better in those. Still, it'll be a deserving career-capping Oscar win, so I'm generally fine with it. He's just not winning *my* (fake) Oscar.

• Unlike the other acting categories, I actually had a hard time filling out a field of five here. The top four (see below) were easy enough, but there weren't a lot of options for the fifth spot. I briefly considered James Franco in The Disaster Artist, but his performance is more of an impression, so that didn't last long. I nearly went with my boy Jimmy Macs (James McAvoy) for his impressive multi-character performance in Split (one of the underrated movies of 2017), but I eventually went with a different multi-character performance: Fassbender as the two androids, David and Walter. It's a great dual performance—he's both hero and villain, equal parts Data and Dr. Moreau, in one of the year's most misunderstood films.
• The other usurper here is Jackman, who, like Fassbender, plays a character he's played before (and he also plays two different-but-identical characters). But Jackman has played Wolverine in nine(!) films now—and this one might be the best performance of his career. (The 2006 double-whammy of The Prestige and The Fountain are also up there.) That's because, unlike most of the previous X-movies (which is definitely also a porn site...), Wolvy is actually a human in this one. And not just because his powers are fading. It's because Logan isn't actually a superhero movie—it's a dramatic film that happens to be about superheroes, and Jackman makes the most of the opportunity to explore the humanity of these superpowered humans. I wish more superhero movies would follow Logan's lead.
• The rest of the three nominees here landed much-deserved Oscar nominations. I was especially happy to see Kaluuya's name on Oscar nom morning—he's very young for a Best Actor nominee (28), he's, uh, black, and his performance is mostly reactive. The story mostly drives his performance, whereas most Best Actor nominees mostly drive the stories of their films. But Get Out allows Kaluuya to embody the genial wariness that most black people probably experience day-to-day—and he's even better when he gets to drop the pretense at the end of the film. I can't wait to see what he does next. (Sicario sidequel?)
• Chalamet is even younger than Kaluuya at 22, and is, surprisingly, not French, which I definitely thought he was after seeing him in Lady Bird. Speaking of which, I was generally unimpressed with his performance as a pseudo-intellectual poser in that film and was prepared to be underwhelmed in CMBYN. I couldn't have been more wrong, although the languid pacing of the film doesn't allow him to really shine until the second half of the film. And in what is probably a film first, his best acting might actually occur over the end credits. I'll be hoping either him or the guy below can pull off the upset against Oldman on Oscar night. Wouldn't that be peachy?
• Can Day-Lewis win a record-setting (for men) or record-tying (for either gender) at what might be his final Oscars? If he pulls off the upset, it would certainly be deserving (even though his win in 2012 for Lincoln came at the expense of Joaquin Phoenix's superior performance in The Master—although he was robbed for Gangs of New York, so I guess it all evens out?). His work as Reynolds Woodcock—perhaps the character name of the year—is one of the best performances of the year, a precise, pained paean to the oft-clichéd tortured genius. The genius of his performance, like Chalamet's, isn't necessarily apparent until close to the end, when the film's—and Woodcock's—true character is revealed. It's a performance, and a film, that demands a second viewing, which I eagerly anticipate.

Despite all the Oscar heavyweights here, I'm giving this award to Hugh Jackman, who had the hardest task by far—not only bringing a character to life, but breathing new life into a character most moviegoers know all too well. He could have easily coasted on his previous eight performances, but, instead, he turned in the best performance in any franchise movies since probably Heath Ledger. (R.I.P.) It's one I know I'll revisit many times. (And in black and white too!)

Best Score

Marco Beltrami – Logan

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – Wind River

Dario Marianelli – Darkest Hour

Oneohtrix Point Never – Good Time

Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer – Blade Runner 2049

This is the only category that doesn't overlap the real Oscar nominees. Carter Burwell's Three Billboards came closest, but there actually wasn't that much music in the movie, and one of the nominees below is the same type of score, just better. Desplat and Greenwood both did fine work for The Shape of Water and Phantom Thread, but those kinds of ornate, baroque scores don't typically do it for me. Zimmer is on here but for a different movie. And Williams always does good work on the Star Wars movies, but he basically gets a nomination just for showing up. Not here.

• The most typical orchestral film score on this list is Marianelli's for Darkest Hour, which is about as Oscar-baity a movie as there comes. But Marianelli is the man behind one of my all-time favorite film scores, Atonement, and his latest collaboration with Joe Wright is another thing of beauty—alternately sweeping and mournful and, finally, as rousing as anything you'll hear this year. It'll make you want to leap out of your seat to fight Nazis (even if the film itself doesn't quite accomplish the same goal).
• Beltrami's alternately spare and caustic score is the perfect complement to the emotional and physical grittiness of Logan. Forlorn piano undercut by discordant strings, bleeding into heavy guitar and howling harmonica, it sounds almost like a '70s Southern prog rock band founded by Clint Mansell. (If that makes any sense.) The score doesn't dictate the emotional beats of the movie (and there are plenty), but adds nuance to them, enhances them, sonic texture than manages to stand on its own.
• Cave and Ellis's Wind River score, like the film, is one of the more underappreciated of the year. Treading similar aural territory as Burwell's Billboards score (twangy strings, tinkling keys, rustic moodiness), their work conjures up the frigid mountainsides, frozen plains, and claustrophobic interiors of the film's setting—a desolate and desperate tableau. It's haunting and deeply affecting work, maybe even better than their work on 2016's Hell or High Water.
• Ever since Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won the Oscar for their The Social Network score, there's been a growing trend of electronic musicians scoring TV shows and films. A couple great recent examples are Disasterpiece's phenomenal It Follows score and Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of S U R V I V E's music for Stranger Things. Oneohtrix Point Never's score for Good Time is the latest example, and one of the best scores of the year. Urgent, hypnotic, and trippy—like the offspring of Cliff Martinez and Philip Glass on acid—it's as audacious and mold-breaking as the movie that spawned it.
• The new Blade Runner was perhaps the most technically impressive film of the year: cinematography, set design, visual effects, sound—all of which it received Oscar nominees for. Missing out was Johannes BRAAAMS himself in Zimmer, whose ethereal-yet-foreboding score was much stronger than his work on Dunkirk in my book (er, blog). (And, besides, Marianelli did the better Dunkirk-related score.) The score suffuses every immaculately designed and shot scene with crystallized dread commingled with a strange sense of hope. It's a marvel to behold. I just wish I liked the writing and acting as much as the technical aspects. (I do intend to rewatch it soon though.)

This was really tough to pick, coming down to, perhaps surprisingly, Marianelli and Beltrami, the two most prototypical film scores. Even more surprisingly, I decided to go with Dario Marianelli for Darkest Hour, probably my least favorite of the Best Picture nominees. But the end credits piece, "We Shall Fight" is the film music that stuck in my head the most last year, especially the triumphant piano melody. Just fantastic work, even if I didn't love the sometimes maudlin movie as a whole.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green – Logan*

James Ivory – Call Me by Your Name*

Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber – The Disaster Artist*

Aaron Sorkin – Molly's Game*

Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman – It

Four out of five of the real Oscar nominees are in here as well, and I have't seen the fifth nominee (Mudbound), so it could turn out that I agree with all five nominees when I eventually see it. But overall, it wasn't a strong year for adapted screenplays. The various non-Logan superhero movies were good, but the scripts all had to follow the typical franchise formula. I considered Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi, but it also was beholden to franchise conventions (and is the middle film in the trilogy besides) and didn't really know what to do with its female lead. But I was able to find space for a movie I was surprised as much as I did to round out the field of 5.

• That movie was It, the year's best (and only) coming-of-age horror summer blockbuster. It borrows liberally from other King adaptations (and spiritual adaptations like Stranger Things), yes, but it's effective in its own right, streamlining the overly complicated mythos behind Pennywise/It without sacrificing anything essential. Palmer, Fukunga, and Dauberman set up the scares well (especially the ones in broad daylight—hard to do) and elegantly sets the table for the sequel while allowing the movie to stand on its own. Solid, functional work overall. (Although I do wish it hadn't leaned so much on the "damsel in distress" cliché in the third act.)
• I almost omitted Neustadter and Weber for their adaptation of The Disaster Artist for being too straightforward. The book uses two separate timelines—the events leading up to the making of The Room and the actual filming of The Room—while the film takes a simple chronological approach. And the film is a bit more gawky toward Tommy Wiseau than the book, going for easy laughs when a more psychoanalytical approach would've been more effective. (The book largely avoids both—easy laughs and psychoanalysis.) But in the end, the film has just the right balance of humor, pathos, and incredulousness that I included it here.
• Sorkin's script for Molly's Game was another flawed contender, but its high points were more than enough to outweigh the one pretty terrible scene toward the end. (I won't spoil it here, but it's basically a pater ex machina.) But those high points are Sorkin very near the top of his game (this isn't *quite* Social Network level), from the opening voiceover to the Michael Cera's serpentine Player X to Idris Elba absolutely CRUSHING his one Sorkin monologue. But the pièce de résistance is the mid-film sequence featuring Bill Camp's unassuming entrance into and shockingly catastrophic exit from the titular poker game. It's one of my favorite sequences in any film this year.
• I was ecstatic to see Frank, Mangold, and Green nominated for Logan on Oscar nom morning. It's the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight and the script is a big reason why. While Logan is still clearly a superhero movie—it's got all the usual action set pieces, superpowered rumbles, and nefarious government organizations—it's also very much a movie about family. The extended mid-film sequence at the Munson farm has some of the best writing in any film this year, contrasting the patched-together trio of Logan, Charles, and Laura to the close-knit Munson family. Things predictably go wrong, but what's unpredictable is how affecting it all is when the blood is finally shed—and who's. It's an uncompromising, unflinching movie all the way to the end credits.
• Like I said above, you actually have to stay through the credits with Call Me by Your Name—and I'll be damned if that isn't right there in Ivory's script. That editless, wordless scene serves as the exclamation point (or perhaps ellipsis) to the best love story of the year. (And how great is it that the best love stories of the past couple years are all about gay romances?) Ivory's masterful adaptation of the gay literary touchstone pushes Elio and Oliver together and pulls them apart in a sensuous rhythm for close to ninety minutes before finally allowing them to meld as one. It's a masterclass in patience and restraint, full of breathtaking interludes and unforgettable moments—and, of course, capped by Stuhlbarg's sure-to-be legendary monologue. The adaptation is handled with such care that it almost feels like you're reading the dialogue as it's being spoken, it gets into your head that much.

This one almost went to Logan, but as good as the Munson sequence and the very end was, it just didn't pack the same emotional and literary punch as James Ivory's work on Call Me by Your Name, which gets the win here and is likely the Oscar frontrunner as well.

Best Original Screenplay

Sean Baker – The Florida Project

Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird*

Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon – The Big Sick*

Jordan Peele – Get Out*

Two big Oscar contenders missed out here—Three Billboards and The Shape of Water. Neither of them really had a chance in this category for me. Billboards' script—set in the same state as Ferguson, for chrissakes—is absolutely tone deaf on race (to put it mildly), while Water's was just a little too... slight. (The strength of that movie is in the filmmaking and acting, not writing.) Other films considered were Colossal, Phantom Thread, Raw, and Ingrid Goes West. On to the nominees...

• I have a feeling Baker's The Florida Project script missed out on a real Oscar nomination because of the film's natural, documentary-like feel and use of non-professional actors. It almost feels like the camera was just dropped in the middle of Kissimmee and picked up what it found. That's a shame, because the script's ability to to show both the rock-bottom desperation and never-dying hope of these motel residents is one of the true feats of screenwriting of the year. And that ending, my god (wordless, yes, but it still has to be written). There will be much more on this one below.
• Also looked over by the Academy were Lanthimos and Filippou for Sacred Deer. It's not hard to figure out why—Sacred Deer is built on monotone line readings, stilted conversations, and a lethargic pace. Oh, and *SPOILERS* the ending features a blindfolded father murdering his son with a rifle. Not exactly Oscar fare. But it works. Like most Lanthimos films, it's uniquely weird yet undeniably compelling—and, in my eyes, his best yet.
• Nanjiani and Gordon *did* thankfully earn an Oscar nom for the best romantic comedy since... I don't even know. Does Trainwreck count? Drinking Buddies? (Don't say Pitch Perfect.) Romantic comedy hasn't really been an Oscar-relevant genre since the '90s heydey of Ephron and Crowe (although The Artist and Silver Linings Playbook might count), but Nanjiani and Gordon bring a modern touch to the story of their love, touching on race, the healthcare debate, and even 9/11 (in one of the best scenes of the year—see the blurb on Holly Hunter above). Leave it to an interracial couple to make romcoms great again.
• The coming-of-age movie has had better Oscar luck recently, with 20th Century Women, Inside Out, and Boyhood scoring noms in recent years. Gerwig continues that streak this year with the wonderful Lady Bird. Loosely based on her own adolescence in Sacramento, Lady Bird is a full-hearted exploration of mother-daughter relationships, burgeoning sexuality, high school politics, female friendship, finding your place in the world... yeah, it touches on a lot of themes. But it doesn't short-change any of them, and the clichés it does court are approached with earnestness and honesty. And, come on, any film that scores one of its biggest emotional beats to "Crash Into Me"—and totally pulls it off—deserves all the plaudits it gets.
• One of the best things about this year's crop of Oscar nominees is that Tyroil Smoochie-Wallace is now an Oscar nominee (which I called, NBD)—and Peele might damn well win one or two. He might have his best shot in this category for what is *SPOILERS* easily the best screenwriting achievement of the year. Much has been made about the indeterminate genre of Get Out—is it a drama or comedy? A horror movie? A horror-comedy? A documentary? (For the record, I agree with the Golden Globes' decision to nominate it as a comedy—it's fucking hilarious.) However you want to categorize it, it doesn't matter—it's simply the sharpest social satire in a long time, replete with incisive observations and ingenious devices. It's also has an alternate ending that's might be even better than the nearly perfect theatrical ending. What a movie.

Obviously, Jordan Peele takes this category for Get Out, the best debut script in a long, long time. He's got a really good shot on Oscar night in a wide-open category. He's one of the nominees I'll be rooting for the hardest come March 4.

Best Director

Sean Baker – The Florida Project

Luca Guadagnino – Call Me by Your Name

James Mangold – Logan

Christopher Nolan – Dunkirk*

Jordan Peele – Get Out*

All three of the missing Oscar nominees were varying degrees of painful to leave off this list. I'm a huge PTA fan, and his last few movies are great, but a little... esoteric at times, Phantom Thread included. I loved The Shape of Water and how much it loves movies, but it's a fairy tale that's much more purely cinematic than actually dramatic, so I could live with not including del Toro. But Greta Gerwig. Man, it *kills* me to leave her off the list. I *loved* Lady Bird and thought she did a fantastic job on it. I just loved these films slightly more and thought their directors did just a bit better work. There were just a few too many familiar beats in Lady Bird, and the ending didn't *quite* land for me. But I'm raptly waiting for her next film. 

• The final slot was between Gerwig and Guadagnino, and I felt that Guadagnino had the slightly defter touch from the director's chair. CMBYN had the warm, hazy feeling of a cherished memory and the deep emotionality of a vivid dream that you just woke up from. It's also a gorgeous movie, swathed in sunshine and pastels and bare flesh. (Granted that it's easier to film a gorgeous movie in Italy versus Sacramento.) And thanks to Guadagnino, it's the rare film that manages to be both sexy and emotionally resonant. This, combined with 2015's excellent A Bigger Splash makes me both want to dive backwards into his catalogue and look forward to his next film.
• I also considered Rian Johnson here for his often-spectacular work on The Last Jedi. He was responsible for some of my favorite movie moments of the year (see below). But, again, the film is propped up by the built-in franchise girding and he doesn't handle Rey particularly well. Instead, I went with another director of a franchise film whose film broke away from the trappings of the genre—Mangold for Logan. I've already waxed plenty above about the thoughtful script, stellar performances from Stewart and Jackman, and the film-within-a-film at the Munson farm. So let me end by saying that the scene at the Oklahoma City casino is one of the most inventive, intense action scenes since Mad Max: Fury Road (and in a totally different way). Mangold gets the lion's share of the credit for the best superhero movie of the year in a year that featured several very good ones.
• The other non-real-Oscar nominee in my field is Baker, who, given his trajectory from Tangerine to The Florida Project seems like a damn good bet to earn a nom with his next film. Should that happen, it'll be one film too late, since he was absolutely one of the five best directors of 2017. How else to explain how a film featuring predominantly non-professional actors—most of whom are children—and shot in the seediest, scummiest transient motels of the sinking state of Florida was one of the year's best? Baker's knack for finding the humanity and the hopefulness in the denizens of society's fringes—Armenian cab drivers, transgender prostitutes, welfare mothers, motel managers—combined with his almost whimsical aesthetic make anything he does worth watching. I'd normally be leery of a film about the opioid crisis as it's happening, but if Baker is directing it, I'm all in.
• Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, The mother fucking Prestige—it's hard to believe his nomination for Dunkirk is Nolan's first Oscar nomination for Best Director. It's richly deserved for his most accomplished, subtle work since the aforementioned Prestige (which is possibly his best work). Dunkirk takes the ingenious Russian-nesting-doll structure of Inception, strips it of the high-concept antics, and builds a gripping WWII drama around it. Watching each of the three timelines unfold on their own time signature and slowly—but inexorably—linking together in a pulse-pounding climax is one of the truly breathtaking cinematic achievements of 2017. Nolan will probably lose to del Toro on Oscar night, which would be a shame, if not quite on the level of one of the all-time Oscar snubs.
• That leaves us with Peele for the year's breakout directing performance. The premise—a horror movie about a black man visiting his white girlfriend's parents for the first time—seemed more like an extended Key and Peele sketch than the zeitgeist-iest, most socially aware movie of the year. Just about every moment is note-perfect, from the Childish Gambino-scored opening to "I would've voted for Obama a third time if I could" to the Sunken Place to the two equally great endings. First films aren't usually this polished, this assured, this groundbreaking... not to mention this darkly hilarious, this tonally nimble, this cuttingly observant. But he totally crushed it. Smashed it. Smoshed it.

This was the toughest category of them all to pick. The final two contenders were Baker and Peele, who helmed my *SPOILERS* two favorite movies of the year. Peele actually beat out Baker for Original Screenplay above, which is exactly why I went with Sean Baker for this category. The strengths of Get Out come directly from the page, while The Florida Project comes to life on the screen—best embodied by the incredible ending, a clandestinely shot dash through the Magic Kingdom itself. It's magical, affirming, a little scary, a little sweet... in a word, perfect.

Best Picture

Call Me by Your Name*

Dunkirk*

The Florida Project

Get Out*

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Lady Bird*

Logan

Molly's Game

The Shape of Water*

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

None of the other actual Best Picture nominees was particularly close here, but I enjoyed them all to varying degrees, from the bilious and deliberate Phantom Thread to the spectacularly flawed and sometimes actually spectacular Billboards to the spectacularly competent The Post to the severe and sentimental Darkest Hour. A few films that just missed the cutoff here were mother!, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok (I do love me some Marvel movies). As usual, I've gone with a full list of 10 to match my Letterboxd top films of 2017 list (rather than the 9 films that earned real Best Picture nominees). Here are my final thoughts on my favorite films of the year.

• 10) Molly's Game – I flip-flopped between this and mother!, but wound up going with the film with the (slightly) stronger lead performance and less opaque story. (Although the cinematography in mother! might be the year's best.) Despite its daddy issues, Molly's Game is a story made for the big screen, and Sorkin brings it to life with his trademark machine gun approach to dialogue and a keen sense of tension, for drama and poker hands both.
• 9) The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro's latest has found itself the frontrunner for Best Picture, which is never a thing I thought I'd say about a film in which a woman *SPOILERS* fucks a fish-man. But to me, neither the fish-man, nor Michael Shannon's forehead vein, nor even Sally Hawkins is the star of the show—instead, it's cinema itself. This is the most unlikely ode to classic films I can think of, but from the careful compositions, to the jaunty score, to the delightfully emotive acting, to the movie theater Sally Hawkins's character lives above, this is clearly a love letter to Old Hollywood. Which is probably why it will win the Oscar next month.
• 8) The Killing of a Sacred Deer – This is easily the least-likely film on this list. I wasn't a huge fan of the previous two Lanthimos films I'd seen—Dogtooth (too deliberately "shocking") and The Lobster (great concept, but drab and kind of boring). I thought I was headed for another Lobster with the first half or so of Deer—wooden performances, stilted line-readings, a seemingly forced weirdness, an apathetic pace. But when the plot hinted at in the trailer kicked in, everything seemed to click for me. The character interactions started to make sense, the weirdness seemed justified, and the tension was cranked up so much I physically felt it in my seat. It wound up reminding me a lot of Cache, one of—if not my favorite—the best films of this century. It's not for everyone, and it's certainly not a very likable film, but I found myself admiring it more and more once I understood what Lanthimos was trying to do. It's also probably the film on this list I've thought the most about long after I saw it. It really stays with you.
• 7) Lady Bird – Here's how much I like Greta Gerwig: I was super disappointed when I found out she was *only* directing Lady Bird and wasn't actually in it. (I mean, she couldn't have been a nun or the older sister of a friend or something?) But then, of course she's in the movie—in every line of dialogue, in every awkwardly genuine tic of Lady Bird, in every lovingly specific dig at Sacramento, in every music choice. It feels both incredibly personal and universal at the same time, which is hard to pull off. And even though the ending didn't *quite* work for me, it was also just ambiguous enough that it made the movie work as a quasi-prequel to Frances Ha (one of my actual favorite movies of this century), which made me appreciate Gerwig's achievements in that one all the more. It's not a Baumbach movie at all to me anymore—it's Gerwig's first feature. I can't wait to see what her third brings!
• 6) Dunkirk – If anyone wanted to argue that the characters in Dunkirk are a weak point, I'll mostly agree. I don't remember a single thing about any of the characters in the beach plotline, or about the non-Tom Hardy pilot. But Hardy is probably the character people remember most about the film, and I call BS if you didn't find the Rylance storyline with his sons compelling. But, yeah, I generally agree the characters were a weak point. That said, this was one of the most technically impressive film of the year, maybe even more so than Blade Runner 2049 (which had even more flaws with its characters/story). Magnificent cinematography, tension-driving score, bombastic sound, meticulous editing, Dunkirk is big-budget filmmaking at its finest. Like here, it probably won't win any major awards come Oscar night, but it will be a major category in the techs.
• 5) Logan – Yes, Logan is a superhero movie, and, yes, it's rated R. Those aren't the reasons it's so good though (although they don't hurt). Logan is a good movie because, simply, it's just that—a good movie. It's a surprisingly heartfelt story about the family you find when the one you were born into is gone, about the reckoning that comes after a lifetime of persecution and violence, about finally coming to peace with the choices you've made. That it just happens to be about people with healing factors, retractable claws, and/or telekinesis is just a bonus. Take those things away and, I'd contend, you'd still have a great movie. (That's because you'd likely have an old-school Western, but that's a point for a more in-depth write-up.) I hope we'll see plenty more superhero movies like Logan, but given the Marvel/DC box-office arms race, I doubt we will, unfortunately.
• 4) Call Me by Your Name – It's easy to compare CMBYN to Moonlight, as they're both critically fawned-over gay romances that came out in back-to-back years. But I don't think the comparison is strictly accurate—Elio and Oliver didn't have to hide who they were nearly to the level Chiron and Kevin did for a number of reasons. (Race is a big one, as are geography and social class.) No, the better comparison for Elio and Oliver is another set of star-crossed white lovers: Jesse and Celine of the Before Sunrise trilogy. The European locale, the too-short time together, the vague hopefulness for the future despite knowing their time together was coming to an end... it just makes too much sense. Even Guadagnino himself realizes the similarities, teasing a Before Sunset–esque sequel a decade or so down the line. Elio visiting married father Oliver in America, neither never having gotten over the other? Watching their romance unfold on screen was one of the most purely joyful cinematic experiences of the year, so count me 100% in for revisiting it. (Although I hope it ends better than Before Midnight—great movie, but my god it was hard to watch.)
• 3) Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The ranking of this one might come as a bit of a surprise, considering the lack of presence in the other categories above. It's even more surprising to me, considering that my fist viewing was at a sold-out 10:00 p.m. preview screening after more than a few barrel-aged beers with several buddies (one of whom fell asleep about 10 minutes in) and my review was "meh." But then I saw it again a few days later without the buzz or the snoring and the number of moments where I cheered silently or pumped my fist or cracked a huge grin or stared slack-jawed at the screen were more than I could count. (More than VIII, anyway.) Paige Tico's sacrifice, Rey's hall of mirrors, CANTO BIGHT, Holdo's last stand, the fight with Snoke's guards, Rose and Finn's kiss... I didn't realize how much they'd stuck with me after the first viewing, and how much I'd been anticipating them. I haven't seen it since, but I'm already looking forward to the next time I do. THAT is the mark of a great movie, and that it came as the *eighth* movie in a franchise is even more impressive. (I'm tempering my expectations for IX though.)
• 2) Get Out – Although I'm (thankfully) no longer a dead-broke student, my preferred method of seeing movies is still the time-honored "pay-for-one-see-two" double feature. It's partly out of habit/tradition, and partly because I genuinely love spending 4-5 hours at a time in those darkened theaters. I say all this because 2017 was a damn good year for double features. I saw CMBYN and The Post on the same day, The Shape of Water and Darkest Hour and, impressively, Lady Bird and Thor: Ragnarok. (There was also Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Dunkirk, which was... interesting.) Great movie days, all. But none were better than the day I saw Logan and Get Out back-to-back. I walked out of Logan knowing I'd already seen one of the best movies of the year (this was in March), but I had no idea I was about to walk into an even better one. Get Out blew me away—it was inventive, it was important, it was impassioned. It didn't know what genre it wanted to be, but it didn't matter because it executed the best parts of each flawlessly and subverted every cliché it encountered. It's the movie I've talked the most about this year, and the one I hope will walk away with the real Best Picture in just over a week...
• 1) The Florida Project – ...if only because, somehow, the Academy passed over the actual best picture of the year, The Florida Project. It's a small movie, to be sure (only a $2M budget and $7.5M box office), with only one "big" name attached (Dafoe's), but what it lacks in traditional prestige and major studio sheen, it more than make up for in pure, crackling vitality. The cast, the characters, the setting, the story, the filmmaking—everything about this movie just seems so raw and real and untouched by pretension or artifice. These kinds of cinematic experiences are so rare—Moonlight was one just last year, Boyhood a couple years before that. Say what you will about the Academy, but they usually at least nominate these films when they come along. They didn't this year for whatever reason, but I'm not making that same mistake. See it if you get a chance and I think you'll feel something similar to what I did. It's rare to see such a pure distillation of the human experience—life, beautiful, messy, difficult life—projected onto a screen, but that's just what Sean Baker accomplished with this film. See it, see it, see it.

And that concludes another several-thousand-words-long ramble about last year's films a couple months too late for most people to care. But it's earlier than last year (by three whole days!) and before the actual Oscars, so I'll count that as a win. As always, thanks for reading!