98th Academy Awards (2026)

I'm hosting again this year! It's been an excellent year at the movies, not just good quality but movies we need. We've been spoiled with movies that speak to our here and now with urgency. There are many movies that would be worthy winners, to represent the (challenging) year. How lucky we are that in the inaugural year of the Best Casting Award, there are five superbly well cast nominees. Sinners was perhaps the best theatrical experience of the year and it was handsomely rewarded with nominations in every category for which it was eligible, a record even if you discount the new Casting award. I also want to call out the extraordinary showing for foreign language films in both topline and below-the-line categories; nice to see single nominees in the crafts that I've never even heard of making you really think they're deserved nominations not just riding coattails of a popular movie. And in the top categories, there's really only one lock (Jessie Buckley giving the performance of the year), so it's anybody's game. 

My Top Movies

1. Sinners
2. Marty Supreme
3. One Battle After Another
4. Resurrection
5. The Baltimorons
6. It Was Just an Accident
7. Sentimental Value
8. Splitsville
9. Happyend
10. Hamnet
11. Black Bag
12. Train Dreams
13. The Secret Agent
14. F1
15. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl 

 Best Picture

1. One Battle After Another
2. Sinners
3. Marty Supreme
4. Hamnet
5. Sentimental Value
6. The Secret Agent
7. Frankenstein
8. F1
9. Train Dreams
10. Bugonia

Best Director
Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Should Win: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Honorable Mention: Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident

Best Actress
Will Win/Should Win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Best Actor 
Will Win: Michael B Jordan, Sinners
Should Win: Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Amy Madigan, Weapons
Should Win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Honorable Mention: Tania Maria, The Secret Agent 

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win/Should Win: Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win/Should Win: One Battle After Another 

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win/Should Win: Sinners 

Best Casting
Will Win/Should Win: Sinners

Best Cinematography
Will Win: One Battle After Another
Should Win: Train Dreams 

Best Costume Design
Will Win/Should Win: Frankenstein 

Best Film Editing
Will Win/Should Win: F1

Best Makeup and Hair
Will Win/Should Win: Frankenstein 

Best Production Design
Will Win: Frankenstein
Should Win: Hamnet 
Honorable Mention: Resurrection

Best Score
Will Win/Should Win: Sinners
Honorable Mentions: Resurrection, Marty Supreme, Happyend

Best Song
Will Win: Golden, Kpop Demon Hunters
Should Win: I Lied to You, Sinners 
Honorable Mention: Bad As I Used to Be, F1

Best Sound
Will Win/Should Win: F1 

Best Visual Effects
Will Win/Should Win: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Best Animated Feature
Will Win: Kpop Demon Hunters
I've neglected to watch the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the year because I don't have Netflix and I feel weird watching a kids movie at home by myself. 

Best Documentary Feature
Will Win/Should Win: The Perfect Neighbor 

Best International Film
Will Win: The Secret Agent 
Should Win: Sentimental Value
Honorable Mention: Resurrection

Best Animated Short
Will Win/Should Win: Butterfly 

Best Documentary Short
Will Win/Should Win: All the Empty Rooms
Geeta Gandbhir has a chance to double up in the documentary categories but I'm rooting for Steve Hartman.

Best Live Action Short
Will Win: A Friend of Dorothy
Should Win: Two People Exchanging Saliva 
I was so taken by Two People Exchanging Saliva, I chose it for the next movie club which I'm hosting on Monday.

All Out (Broadway) (2025)

It sort of plays out like an episode of Saturday Night Live, 90 minutes without commercials of sketch comedy with special guests and musical performances. The music here is performed by the band Lawrence. We got an understudy for Gracie Lawrence, but she (Olivia Puckett) was also excellent. I'd never heard of Lawrence before but I quite liked their music and fun instrumentation. Clyde Lawrence has a fantastic raspy singing voice. The show is basically half Lawrence concert. The other half is sketch comedy, not so much acted out, but read aloud, mostly on book from a seated position. Like SNL, some of the sketches are better than others, some just a few lines long; occasionally an audible laugh but mostly clever chuckles. They rotate the cast. We went for Ray Romano. But the star was really Nicholas Braun, who is basically playing Cousin Greg himself. He's comically tall and awkward. He improv-ed a bit, making his cast mates laugh. Jenny Slate also did a funny sketch where she plays a horse. Not just any horse but Paul Revere's midnight ride horse.  It was fun, the music was good, the show wasn't too long. 

High Spirits (2026) (Encores!)

At its core, Encores! at City Center is about reviving shows you've never heard of with big names on little rehearsal. High Spirits embodies this spirit. Almost everyone was on book, save for Rachel Dratch who hardly has any lines, though she is hilarious just moping around. Andrea Martin was not only on book, but she lost her spot and had to halt the show. Steven Pasquale kindly hustled over to help her find her line. That was the funniest part of the show because she's such a comedienne about it. The show is a musical adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. Coward's wry humor is light and British. It's like watching Downton Abbey; the latest Downton movie actually featured a visit from Mr Coward himself. Philippa Soo has the sensibility and mannerisms for it. She plays opposite her real life husband, Pasquale, playing his second wife. The plot is about a seance that brings back his first wife's ghost. None of the music is all that memorable, or good frankly, but Katrina Lenk has a couple songs as the first wife that suit her voice nicely. Overall, it's a weird show. It actually quite closely resembles the plot of Death Becomes Her. But it's not as funny or fun as Death Becomes Her. 

Vir Das: Hey Stranger (2025) (Off-Broadway)

Lincoln Center Theater is doing a cool comedy series in the Claire Tow Theater upstairs, an intimate 100-seater room. I brought my favorite Indian-American comic Vivek to see the most famous Indian comic Vir Das do a 90-minute set. Das has a western sensibility, in both his references and in his comedic style. I don't know if his stand-up, which is quite open and vulnerable in the style of modern American Netflix specials, really translates to an Indian audience but I think he's primarily performing for us. Which makes his set all the more poignant, about belonging in America, and his pivotal decision about whether to move back here. It perhaps most reminded me of the kind of quiet sincerity that Hasan Minhaj hits you with in his specials to get a more emotional response out of the audience. And I think it largely works, especially in the confines of a small space. 

We went on Linctix night, which included snacks and drinks after the show. I don't know why we've not gone to that more often. Great perk. 

Don Giovanni (Opera) (2025)

Mozart has grown on me in my old age. I used to find his music kind of boring. But in its simplicity is actually musical perfection as God divined. Even when writing about womanizers and their conquests his music is gorgeous. The Cattalog aria sung by Leporello is my favorite in the 3.5 hours. The music itself is interesting in that it's sometimes just singing over a sparse harpsichord line. It's kind of odd harpsichord against the brutalist backdrop of the Ivo Van Hove set. There are three pieces that rotate very slowly, so slowly and subtly that you don't even notice it until it reaches its final position. In the climactic scene when the Commendatore's ghost (or Mozart's father according to Amadeus) drags Don Giovanni down to hell there are these intense projections that look as though they're on a screen, but all of a sudden the projections turn off and I'm told they're projected straight on the set. It's a trick of the eye. From the heights of the family circle, I had a hard time telling the female characters apart. They were all dressed kind of similarly and I'd forgotten my binoculars. Could not tell that Federica Lombardi (Donna Anna) dressed in basically a nightgown was so pregnant she is just a couple weeks away from maternity leave. The singers are all universally excellent. 
 

Stereophonic (2025) (West End)

I missed Stereophonic on Broadway, but we caught it in its West End transfer, which apparently isn't selling so well anymore. We bought seats on the upper rung. We got upgraded to seats in the orchestra because they didn't open the balcony. With the room only half full, we benefited with excellent seats. I loved the single set, two levels, sound-canceling glass in between like a real studio. Sitting at the real sound board, the actors have their back to the audience. The music is written by Will Butler from Arcade Fire. He does a good job at imitating Fleetwood Mac; the band similarly falls apart. The music is actually something I might listen to. I thought there would be applause after the musical numbers but the audience was dead silent until the end. All that said, the play does not need to run 3 hours and 15 minutes. It's way too long for only one intermission/interval, being opera length. 

My Neighbour Totoro (West End) (2025)

My Neighbour Totoro is the classic children's movie by Hayao Miyazaki. The show feels like it's made for children but the audience was mostly adults, who were very into it. The stage adaptation was supervised by the legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, whose iconic score takes center stage second only to the delightful puppetry. We sat on the extreme far right side, next to the conductor, with a significant part of the stage obstructed. It's not a musical but there are a few songs, all sung by an onstage singer rather than the actors. The puppeteers are dressed in black veils, not hidden exactly but inconspicuous. Just like the movie, the show is quite slow. It lavishes in slowness, enjoying the wonder of the visuals and spirituality. There are a few different puppets we see before we catch the first glimpse of Totoro. The sheer size of Totoro is awe-inspiring, matched only by the inflatable cat bus, which as an inflatable isn't as impressive but does elicit laughs. The young children are played by full-grown adults, a 4-year-old to be exact. It's a little weird but honestly quite convincing. It's that Japanese kawaii cutesy anime voice. And the antsy running around. Dad may not admit to liking it but I did hear him react quite a lot. Maybe they're not Lion King-type artistic puppets but they're wondrous in their own way.