2022 Oscar Predictions

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The staff and committee members behind the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas are here to help you win your office pool or make at least a little sense of what might happen on Sunday night!

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Our picks this year are based on ballots submitted by:

• Ryan Hill, Sr. Director of Programming
• Anthony DeSanctis, Programming Manager and Lead Programmer of the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas. Director of the Greater Lehigh Valley Filmmaker Festival (GLVFF)
• Alessandra Fanelli, Cinema Committee Member, Curator of the Cinema Significa… Film Series and Co-Curator of the LGBTQ+ Film Series
• Lauren Tocci, Cinema Committee Member, Co-Curator of the First Saturday Horror Series

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BEST PICTURE

WILL WIN: CODA (Ryan, Anthony); West Side Story (Lauren); The Power of the Dog (Alessandra)

SHOULD WIN: CODA  (Anthony); The Power of the Dog (Ryan, Alessandra); West Side Story (Lauren)

Ryan: I’ll be happy with a win for either CODA or The Power of the Dog; I just believe the latter to have been more of a risk, overall. While CODA’s SAG ensemble award was truly well deserved, I believe The Power of the Dog to be a true masterpiece.

Anthony: This is a two-way race between CODA and The Power of the Dog and there’s a very real chance of either winning but the late-in-the-game but significant accolades at the SAG, WGA, and PGA I think give CODA the uphill advantage. It’s also more of a crowd-please among the Academy.

Lauren: With the gym sequence alone this movie reminds film lovers why the Hollywood musical has been such a staple in filmmaking. I often vote with my heart over watching prediction trends, but something about the awards season makes me feel like this is the surprise ahead. It won’t be surprising at all, it deserves it and this film is a masterclass in directing and choreography.

Alessandra: Though I loved WSS, it was still problematic. The Power of the Dog is hands down the best on the list. It’s consistent, gripping, and more importantly…doesn’t follow a plot line like Licorice Pizza.

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BEST DIRECTOR

WILL WIN: Jane Campion (Anthony, Lauren, Alessandra); Steven Spielberg (Ryan)

SHOULD WIN: Jane Campion (Ryan, Alessandra); Steven Spielberg (Anthony); Lauren refuses to answer!

Alessandra: Would be the first time a woman won two years in a row. Will be interesting to see what has been favorable with The Power of the Dog- the piece or how the director crafted it.

Anthony: Campion will win as she’s been cleaning up everywhere. But I think Spielberg should take this as, honestly, he took one of the most beloved movies of all time and made it better. And you felt his presence on every frame. This is something only one of the greatest directors of all time can do. Still not over the Denis Villeneuve snub. I didn’t realize Dune directed itself!

Lauren: Despite the recent awkward and uncomfortable blunder Campion has been a dynamic and forthright presence in awards season. The Power of the Dog is a brilliantly directed film, well-paced, and beautifully executed. The performances in this film are great, but I walked away talking more about the direction first. As for who I think should win, I can make a case for every director this year. It means whoever wins I will be pleased. There is something about Belfast that really touches something personal and intimate. The converse of that is the spectacle and precision of West Side Story. I can’t be mad at any candidate winning this year, and that makes for a very fun Oscars night and why I am completely abstaining from picking who I want to win, and just hoping for a great speech.

Ryan: Campion does actually seem to be the frontrunner here, but I’m concerned people thinking her film will take Best Picture will leave the old guard to reward Spielberg yet again. It wouldn’t necessarily be undeserved, though I believe West Side Story to be more of a master class in cinematography than it is filmmaking. Campion, however, shows a deft, craftsman-like touch in ever so gently, but steadily, ramping up the tension in a movie that is far from gentle.

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BEST ACTOR

WILL WIN: Will Smith, King Richard (Alessandra, Anthony, Lauren, Ryan)

SHOULD WIN: Will Smith (Anthony, Ryan); Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick.. Boom (Alessandra); a Garfield/Smith tie (Lauren)

Alessandra: The odds are ever in Will Smith’s favor, and he’s deserving…however…there is absolutely nothing more honest than Andrew Garfield’s performance as Jonathan Larson. Also, who know he could sing? He’s amazing. Pun intended.

Anthony: This is a done deal. He poured his heart and soul into this role and in my opinion, it’s easily the best performance of his career. Never at one point did I feel I was watching Will Smith, I only saw Richard.

Lauren: I love a great Oscars moment for a long respected actor, and Will Smith has proved many times over his career that he deserves to have that prestigious recognition. My dream scenario is for the actor I grew up watching to tie with the performance that had me out of my seat, Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson. TICK, TICK,…BOOM was critically underrated during this awards season, and it would be Oscars magic to somehow see both of them up there.

Ryan: Truly a powerhouse of a field this time around, but the shock would compare to last year’s surprise Hopkins-over-Boseman win if Will Smith doesn’t get this win. He has the fact that he’s a long time vet without a trophy in his corner, for one, but, more importantly, he did the damn work and turned in what I believe to be his best performance as an actor. He just hasn’t yet figured out how to one up the masterwork that is Parents Just Don’t Understand, however.

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BEST ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Lauren, Anthony, Ryan, Alessandra)

SHOULD WIN: Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter (Ryan); Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers (Lauren); Kristen Stewart, Spencer (Anthony, Alessandra)

Alessandra: Favoring honest “reincarnations” to traditional biopics is my theme for the two lead categories. Kristen Stewart is vulnerable and engaging, you can’t look away from her.

Anthony: This was an incredible lineup of nominees. Maybe one of my favorite lineups ever actually. But Stewart was the only one to me that from the start of the film, I never saw the actress. There was just… Diana. And it was powerful and heartbreaking.

Lauren: I love Cruz’s performance. It is the kind of story that could easily have a big screaming throwing glasses moment, but she communicates all the emotion of this story in such a grounded manner. However, like many tides I think this one has turned for Chastain, and I am not mad at it. She made Tammy Faye accessible in a way I didn’t expect. Plus Oscars LOOOOVE a big makeup transformation. #NicoleKidmanshouldhavewonforMoulinRougenotTheHours

Ryan: Part of the reason I think Colman should win this does, I admit, have to do with how pissed I am that Maggie Gyllenhaal isn’t quite getting her due for her absolutely incredible debut as a director. But Colman proves yet again she’s one of the best out there as she captivates while her character frustrates. Chastain is great in Eyes of Tammy Faye – I won’t be mad when she wins – but it’s like when Viola Davis is in a category, how do you vote against a master?

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WILL WIN: Troy Kotsur, CODA (Alessandra, Anthony, Ryan); Kodi-Smit McPhee, The Power of the Dog (Lauren)

SHOULD WIN:  Troy Kotsur, CODA (Anthony, Lauren, Ryan); J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos (Alessandra)

Alessandra: J.K. Simmons is a perfect example of a foil character- this performance served very well…but doesn’t compete with the statistics favoring Troy Costur.

Anthony: I remember walking out of the movie back in August thinking “I hope gets an Oscar nomination.” He’s electric every time he’s on screen.

Lauren: The SAG Awards have me hopeful that the heartwarming and tear inducing performance by Kotsur to triumph, and it is hard for me to see a more deserving performance in this grouping. However. I think the energy is leaning The Power of the Dog right now and Smit-McPhee has all the momentum to take it home.

Ryan: All the momentum is truly going Kotsur’s way as we head into Oscars week, with SAG, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice wins under his belt. He is something of an anchor for CODA, which I sometimes found veering into the sappy side of sentimentality until Kotsur’s character would show up and do something like make a fart joke or, as his daughter sang to him, feel the vibrations of that singing on her throat in a way that reduced me to giant leaking tear duct. The rest of the field is quite worthy of being there, but none of those performances quite reach the range Kotsur shows in CODA.

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Ariana DeBose for West Side Story (Alessandra, Anthony, Lauren, Ryan)

SHOULD WIN: Ariana DeBose for West Side Story (Alessandra, Anthony, Lauren, Ryan)

Anthony: I mean, she steals EVERY scene she’s in. So much passion, energy, and emotion in every scene. The award is hers to lose. There has to be an unwritten rule somewhere that says if you play Anita in West Side Story on film, you’ll get an Oscar because DeBose is about to repeat history 60 years after Rita Moreno won the Oscar for the same role.

Lauren: The Academy can’t break my heart like they did last year with Chadwick Boseman not winning, but my jaw will be on the floor if DeBose doesn’t win. For a character performed and revived thousands of times she brings new vitality to the portrayal and that last act is nothing short of remarkable. Give. her. the. gold.

Ryan: Probably the easiest lock of the so-called ‘big’ awards; DeBose deserves every second of this glory simply for being the only Anita I’ve ever seen pull off making us believe that she can actually forgive Maria, or just move forward in general (spoiler: I’ve never liked the story that is West Side Story). I could make an argument for Aunjanue Ellis in her turn as Brandy Williams here – she more than holds her own opposite Smith in King Richard – but DeBose is the clear favorite and deservedly so.

Join the excitement with tickets to
The Red Carpet Party on Sunday, March 27th at Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas!

10 Iconic Filmmakers Who Have Never Won an Oscar

By Robert Delany Cinema Programming Coordinator | 3/24/2022

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The Academy Awards has long been an institution that sparks audience’s love for cinema. However, there is a galaxy of film outside of the Oscars purview that contains some of the most boundary pushing, challenging, and bold artists in cinema history.

Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, here are 10 filmmakers who have left indelible marks on the history of filmmaking but have never won an Oscar.

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John Cassavetes

John Cassavetes began his career as a Hollywood actor in the 1950s: starring in films like The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967), Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) and Machine Gun McCain (Giuliano Montaldo, 1969). It’s his time as a director, however, in which he would create some of the most influential independent cinema in American history.

His unconventional directing style galvanized the most raw, poignant, and powerful performances from icons like Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel, and Ben Gazzara. Cassavetes’ films have an emotional weight to them that is difficult to match, created as ultimate passion projects in opposition to the Hollywood conventions that he was so familiar with.

Martin Scorsese wrote this about Cassavetes: “When I hear the term independent filmmaker, I immediately think of John Cassavetes. He was the most independent of them all. For me, he was and still is a guide and a teacher. Without his support and advice, I don’t know what would have become of me as a filmmaker”.

Films to Check Out: Faces (1968), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

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Robert Bresson

As director Jean Luc-Godard wrote: “Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoyevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music”.

Robert Bresson is known for an ascetic and meticulous style. His sound design was extremely controlled, where noises like footsteps become resounding amidst an often-powerful silence. He almost exclusively employed amateur actors, and his performers are known for having a simple yet serene delivery

His idiosyncrasies are fascinating: from his emphasis on hands, his brilliant use of repetition, to his stress on the suffering of animals. His films are as ambitious as they are strangely spiritual.

Films to Check Out: A Man Escaped (1956), Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Lancelot of the Lake (1974)

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Andrei Tarkovsky

Although Andrei Tarkovsky only directed seven features, he is one of the most celebrated filmmakers in history alongside his peer Robert Bresson (whose films he admired).

Tarkovsky began making films in the 1950s in the Soviet Union. He is known for a methodical filmmaking style, where he invites viewers to meditate on his complex often dreamlike imagery. Tarkovsky is famous for images like strands of grass slowly wafting under water on screen.

Despite this introspective craft, his films are imbued with a mammoth atmosphere: whether his characters are wading through an overgrown factory that is charged with a mysterious reverential energy, tasked with making a gigantic church bell on pain of death, or forced to reckon with impending nuclear war.

Films to Check Out: Stalker (1979), Andrei Rublev (1966), The Sacrifice (1986)

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Kelly Reichardt

To many, Kelly Reichardt is in the middle of creating a monumental body of work, so the Academy will have plenty of opportunities to award her an Oscar in the future.

Reichardt is known for contemplative pacing, complex emotional relationships between her characters, and work that denies traditional narrative drama or genre conventions.

Reichardt’s films are perfect stages for stand out performances from mainstays like Michelle Williams, where Reichardt’s technique creates ample space for beats to develop on screen.

The wandering pacing of a film like Meek’s Cutoff (2010) injects a unique flavor into a tired genre like the Western. The landscape is also rendered beautifully in her work, especially with her home state of Oregon. Reichardt is one the latest trailblazers in American Independent film.

Films to Check Out: Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women (2016)

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Su Friedrich

Su Friedrich is an icon of both experimental and queer cinema, whose multilayered often autobiographical films are foundational to both traditions.

Her inventive technique offers audiences powerfully unconventional experiences. She could tell the story of a romantic relationship only through filming the same make and model of a car. She could edit together snippets of a classic film like Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947) to uncover the subtext underneath. She could pair the story of being terrified by a movie as a child with images from an intense rollercoaster ride, embodying the complex feelings of a formative moment.

Friedrich is a paragon of the power of experimental film, where artists perpetually probe the boundaries of filmmaking. For more information, I had the chance to interview Su Friedrich for Split Tooth Media to celebrate the 30^th Anniversary of her film Sink or Swim (1990).

Films to Check Out: Sink or Swim, Rules of the Road (1993), Damned if you Don’t (1987)

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Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami was the first Iranian filmmaker to win the coveted Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he is one of the most influential artists of the Iranian New Wave.

Kiarostami was a polymath: a photographer, painter, poet, whose wide-ranging artistic passions bled into his filmmaking. His filmography is incredibly wide ranging: from intimate portraits of everyday struggles, fusions of documentary and fiction, snapshots of the aftermath of natural disasters, to experimental studies of motion and stillness.

He is especially known for “The Koker Trilogy,” three films that were all set in one rural region of Iran that are prime examples of his stunning landscape cinematography.

Films to Check Out: Taste of Cherry (1997), The Koker Trilogy (Where is the Friend’s House (1987), And Life Goes On (1992), Through the Olive Trees (1994)), Close Up (1990)

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Chantal Akerman

Chantal Akerman was a Belgian filmmaker whose work defined a generation of Avant Garde filmmaking. She is primarily known for the fiction feature, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975): which follows the routines of a woman as she cooks, cleans, runs errands, and at times is revealed as a sex worker.

It is difficult to overstate the seismic impact that Jeanne Dielman has made on cinema: for its methodical technique, bold minimalist design, yet dynamic portrayal of the emotional vicissitudes of the everyday. As Nicola Mazzanti of the Royal Belgian film Archive eloquently put: “‘Jeanne Dielman’ is a film that created, overnight, a new way of making films, a new way of telling stories, a new way of telling time.”

Akerman is also a major figure in the history of Avant Garde documentary: with films like News from Home (1977), South (1999), From the Other Side (2002), Là-bas (2006), and No Home Movie (2015).

Films to Check Out: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, News from Home, No Home Movie

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William Greaves

William Greaves was a pioneering filmmaker who created a massive body of work over the course of 52 years.

Greaves made films spanning fiction, documentary, and experimental fusions between the two. He created numerous documentaries that chronicled figures of civil rights, the struggle for racial equality, and icons of African American history. Greaves won an Emmy for his series Black Journal (1968-1970), which was the first Black produced series to be nationally broadcast on American television.

He might be most known for his experimental documentary, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968). A film crew captures a film crew making a film, where different pairs of actors repeat the same scene in different scenarios. As pedestrians and reality creep in on the set, as the crew grapples with technology, as actors struggle, Greaves stands in the center of this experiment as the conductor of a brilliant study about the nature of the filmmaking process.

Films to Check Out: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 ½ 2005), Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice (1989)

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Bela Tarr

Bela Tarr is a Hungarian director who is one of the most unique, challenging, and enigmatic filmmakers in cinema.

The range of experience in a Bela Tarr film is remarkable. One moment the film will be immersed in a feeling of grave existential dread set in a grey, desolate, often waterlogged landscape. Then, suddenly, his characters will be dancing carefree in a fruit brandy-soaked celebration. This complexity extends to his vivid cinematography, where he offers so much beauty in an often almost apocalyptic setting.

He will focus on simple actions like characters walking down the street for minutes at a time. This allows for scenes to grow in unusual ways.  Tarr’s films are famous for their tragic atmosphere, but what is often underdiscussed about his work are the moments of poignancy that are amplified under the weight of his style.

Films to Check Out: Werkmeister Harmonies (2000), Satantango (1994), The Turin Horse (2011)

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Yasujiro Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker who in the rich history of Japanese Cinema, is still regarded as one of the preeminent filmmakers in the nation’s history.

Ozu worked from the late 1920s to the 1960s and is known for his poignant family portraits. Ozu films are often centered around the intersections of different generations, especially with strong female characters at the forefront (often played by actress Setsuko Hara). His work is filled to bursting with a sense of understanding and empathy about the complexity of familial relationships.

His pacing and cinematography influenced generations of filmmakers: whether that was his integration of ellipses in narrative structure, or his use of inventive techniques like the “tatami shot.” Ozu’s focus on the dynamics of communication, societal norms, and social codes remains fresh today.

Films to Check Out: Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953), Equinox Flower (1958)

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Honorable Mentions: Mike Leigh, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Maya Deren, Suzan Pitt, Tsai Ming-Liang, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Chris Marker, Roberto Rossellini, Jim Jarmusch, Stan Brakhage, just to name a few.

After this year’s Oscar season has passed and the ceremonial dust has settled, hopefully this list can act as a springboard into a more unconventional world of cinema.