First post! Oscars sum up 2024 in film

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening!

I decided to start a blog (or rather, make a new one) because I really like to discuss and talk about audiovisual content, movies, TV series or games. I'm already addicted to Letterboxd but I wanted another space to discuss other types of media as well. The idea is to do it like a Letterboxd Rushes but monthly.

For those who ended up here by accident and don't know me, my name is Fefe (they/she/he, but most of the time I prefer neutral terms), I’m Brazilian, and I recently graduated from animation college. That's basically what you need to know to understand where I come from writing this blog.

This first post will be released in the middle of March but it's a list of what I watched/played in February, because it was a great month especially for film and I found it a good topic to break the ice.

And the Oscar goes to...

March 2nd was the 97th edition of the Academy Awards and it was a great event. I didn’t watch all the nominees for the best picture category in time for the ceremony, but I caught up later. I won my friend Leo's cheap bet, getting only 5 categories wrong (Best Actress I voted for Fernanda Torres, Animated Short I voted for Wander to Wonder, Production Design I voted for Conclave, Live-Action Short I voted for The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent and Best Film I voted for Conclave). My guesses were generally well-informed and based on the results of the other awards this season, so my biggest surprises were in Animated Short and Best Picture.

Speaking of the best film category, I saw a lot of people falling on Anora mostly without foundation, which bothered me a lot. It's not my favorite movie this season, but it has a lot of merit, especially technical. But I agree with the criticism regarding the plot and the lack of development of the protagonist. The movie tells a very interesting story, but the character is not deep enough to deserve the title of the film, and so I feel that it does not reach this expectation. I elaborate better on my review of my second watch on Letterboxd, but Mikey Madison really shone in her role. I can't wait to see what this girl will do from now on. Of course, the complexity of Fernanda Torres's role as Eunice Paiva in I'm Still Here doesn't compare, for me she was the the greatest actress of the year. Demi Moore was excellent too, but I feel that any actress with a story like her could have done well in the role of Elizabeth Sparkle in The Substance.

I was very sad that Conclave didn't take more statuettes, it's a beautiful movie visually and sonically, while managing to be a lot of fun. At least that garbage called Emília Perez only took two awards, which I still thought was a lot. Zoe Saldaña at least holds it together, but the song El Mal is one of the most poorly mixed in the entire movie, you can't hear it properly because the voice is all the time travelling from left to right and the television just makes it quiet. It has Zoe whispering, dancing an interesting choreography but nothing to do with the character, and the cherry on top was Karla Sofía Gascón singing in the wrong key and even a little out of rhythm, even with the help from AI. Everything is wrong.

If you're curious to know more of my opinions and my ranking of live-action movies, here's my list.

As for the animation category, I was extremely happy with Flow's victory. Since I watched the film, I became obsessed, I decided to find out everything about the production and ended up creating a parasocial relationship with this film. In my head I also won this Oscar, along with I'm Still Here in the category of Best International Film, as if I had been part of these productions. The kitten movie is of immense sensitivity and it represents independent animation very well. Seeing these two beloved films for me to win (and then seeing the photo of Gints Zilbalodis together with Walter Salles, my heart exploded) gave me a lot of hope and a lot of desire to one day be nominated with a Brazilian animation.

About the shorts, they were very interesting and diverse choices, it was cool to see so much stop-motion being contemplated, both in the short and feature categories (in this case Memoir of a Snail, Wallace and Gromit, Wander to Wonder and Beautiful Men). My bet was on Wander to Wonder, a British short with Don't Hug Me I'm Scared vibes but more sentimental, winner of the BAFTA and the Annie Awards (which is like the Oscar of animation). It's really beautiful and interesting, but the winner of the night was In the Shadow of the Cypress. An Iranian short film (by the way, the directors almost couldn't get to the ceremony because they only released the visa on the same day), with a 2D digital technique and flat aesthetics (without much perspective and without line art). I won't elaborate too much on the story for you, the reader, to be able to feel the weight of the story by itself, but the choice of art direction is very sensitive and interesting. This type of design nowadays is very much related to something more corporate, but it is so well done that it never gets there and manages to raise the level and potential of this aesthetic. It was very deserved and my favorite of the nominees.

If you want to see my opinions on the other nominated films, just check out my list of Best Animated Feature Ranking at the Oscars.

Closing the 2024-2025 awards season, we conclude that it was a great year for cinema, especially for Brazilians. In addition to I'm Still Here, several beautiful films, shorts, features, animation and live-action films were released. 2024 was the year I saw the most Brazilian films in my entire life, and it was really cool that I mostly saw them on big screens. I'm already excited for the releases of this year, because I know a lot of cool things are coming!

The April issue is promising...

I'm going to finish the first edition here, because I want these posts to be shorter and faster to read. But stay tuned because March is already going hard and for the next edition I intend to talk about Rupture (that the second season is coming to an end) and In Stars and Time, a JRPG that I finished a few days ago.

I'm still figuring out how blogging works with Wix, I only used the late Blogspot and Google Sites back in the early 2010s. If it's easy to post comments, let's chat! If it doesn’t, you can send me a message on my personal instagram.

Sending hugs, see you next time!