Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2021

The Contenders:

Kenneth Branagh: Belfast
Ryusuke Hamaguchi: Drive My Car
Paul Thomas Anderson: Licorice Pizza
Jane Campion: The Power of the Dog (winner)
Steven Spielberg: West Side Story

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2021

The Contenders:

Belfast (winner)
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World

A Drop of Dandelion Wine

Film: Belfast
Format: DVD from Nippersink Library through interlibrary loan on basement television.

Before the release of Belfast, Kenneth Branagh had a very odd relationship with the Oscars. He had been nominated five times, all in different categories but had never won. Finally, with three nominations for Belfast, he finally got a win. I like Branagh in general, and I tend to like a lot of what he does. His Hamlet is pretty great and I’m still of the opinion that his Henry V is the best one available. I think he should have won for that, for director at the very least.

Belfast is a story about growing up in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles,” the euphemistic name of the internecine war between Protestants and Catholics. Buddy (Jude Hill) is eight or nine and appears to very much be a stand-in for Branagh at this age. Buddy is vaguely aware that there are problems—hard to be ignorant of them completely when there are riots and house fires on his street. His family is Protestant, as are most in the area, and most of the people in the street don’t seem to care that much that some of their neighbors are Catholic. But, of course, religion remains a great divider, and those who want the Catholics to leave are starting to get violet.