The 2nd Annual Andys

Like the Oscars but way more chill.

Hey hey, it’s Oscar weekend so we’re comin’ atcha with the 2nd annual Andys, the thing where I make my “Oscar picks” in each category (well, most of them) but my only rule is I make picks that weren’t actually nominated. My way of soaking up some of that Oscars SEO juice while acknowledging that cinema is more expansive an art form than the so-called Academy would or could ever admit you feel me? Like let’s face it all these awards enterprises in Hollywood are not only less popular than they’ve ever been but more transparently antithetical to the idea of film as art or even artisan entertainment. Been that way since the beginning really, as Kelli Marshall explains for Mental Floss:

In the late 1920s, MGM bigwig Louis B. Mayer got antsy when studio construction unions began forming in Hollywood. These guilds came with expensive labor agreements, which were proving cost-prohibitive for the film studio. He was also annoyed because he wanted some MGM set designers to build his Santa Monica beach house, but because of the recently signed union contracts, his “outside project” would be very expensive. Mayer got around that by hiring just a few of the studio's skilled artisans and outsourcing the cheap labor. But the situation was an eyeopener for Mayer, who figured soon Hollywood's directors, actors, and writers would unionize, too.

As a result, Mayer and a couple of buddies created the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). In effect, this organization would hopefully stave off any more unionization efforts in Hollywood. Shortly after this meeting, Mayer convened with 36 actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers in a fancy hotel and told them that if they signed on as “Academy members,” working conditions would improve and they’d be a part of an elite organization. Not wanting to miss out on such an opportunity, the Hollywood folks — including new president Douglas Fairbanks and the only female, Mary Pickford — signed on.

As for the TV ceremony itself, Mayer had this to say:

I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them. […] If I got them cups and awards they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.

Fun dude amirite? Anyway, without further adieu, here are the winners of the 2nd annual Andys.

Best Picture: The Beta Test

Because Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe’s satirical Hollywood thriller is astunning genre comedy about the sinister forces and anxieties that plague us under a broken, exploitative system and the unforgiving, all-seeing eye of the internet — exactly the kind of thing the Academy would never acknowledge even though it ticks all the cinematic and zeitgeisty boxes they pretend to “honor” every year.

You can stream The Beta Test on Hulu.

Director: Jim Cummings & PJ McCabe, The Beta Test

Because Best Director should, with few exceptions (including mine last year whoops) go to whoever directed the Best Picture. Plus, Cummings and team should be lauded in particular for ditching the Hollywood system after their first studio production, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, to “make movies out of the garage” again.

Actor: Simon Rex, Red Rocket

Because once you see it you realize there’s no other choice.

Red Rocket is available to rent or buy online.

Actress: Taylour Paige, Zola

Because if there’s a movie that hangs on the warmth, charisma, and erupting star power of its lead (depsite the equally memorable, and certainly more “showy” supporting turn from Riley Keough), this is it.

Zola is available to rent or buy online.

Supporting Actor: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Riders of Justice

Because this guy is enormously effective as the emotional calm in the eye of the storm of this weirdly and deeply emotional movie.

Supporting Actress: Harriet Sansom Harris, Licorice Pizza

Because all this lady needed was one scene. Dynamite. Boom.

Licorice Pizza is availabe to rent or buy online.

Cinematography: Drowning in Potential

Because truly independent filmmaker Joel Haver’s movies achieve an indescribably original and wholly consistent look and feel without any “professional” lighting or whatever, elevating DIY methods of filmmaking by sheer power of crisp, idiosyncratic imagery.

Speaking of Joel Haver, last year I briefly covered how my man livestreamed shooting a whole ass movie with fans and followers during the runtime of the Oscars (the funny, lovely, infectious, anarchic results of which you can watch here). This year he’s inviting others to do the same and making a whole community thing out of it. Dope shit!

Anyway, you can watch Drowning in Potential on YouTube.

Costume Design: No Time to Die

Because, as a self-accredited professor of 007 studies, I really dug the way this particular Bond movie paid elaborate homage to the Sean Connery and Roger Moore eras of the series while also establishing its own playful sense of style by way of serious drip.

No Time to Die is available to rent or buy online.

Documentary: Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Because Adam Curtis’ harrowing journey through our collective demise over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries is a brain-breaking marvel of cut-up cinema.

Can’t Get You Out of My Head keeps floating around YouTube in disparate corners, so just search for it and you should be able to find all six episodes out there somewhere.

Editing: Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Because this thing is also one of the most sublime expressions of film editing you’ll ever see, no joke.

International Feature: Benedetta

Because, to paraphrase the sexy Jesus of Benedetta’s wet dreams, wherever Paul Verhoeven is, there can be no shame.

You can stream Benedetta on Hulu.

Music: No Sudden Move

Because the haunted, jazzy, pulsating orchestral sludge of David Holmes’ score really drives the mood in this joint.

You can stream No Sudden Move on HBO Max.

Production Design: The French Dispatch

Because (while I guess people don’t like this about Wes Anderson anymore or like maybe never did I dunno) the artifice is the point.

You can stream The French Dispatch on HBO Max.

Visual Effects: Candyman

Because the CGI in this movie contributed to the story (as well as the thrills and chills) rather than detracted from it, which I never would’ve guessed given the grimy viscera of the original Candyman.

Candyman is available to rent or buy online.

Original Screenplay: The Card Counter

Because Paul Schrader’s whole God’s Lonely Man thing still fuckin’ cooks.

The Card Counter is available to rent or buy online.

Adapted Screenplay:The Last Duel

Because Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon’s post-#MeToo construction of this medieval true story just fuckin’ worked, man.

You can stream The Last Duel on HBO Max.

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