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Oscar 2023 Winner Predictions: Director

Whatever they do next, we hope that Daniels keeps it real.

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Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Oncd
Photo: A24

It’s funny how Oscar nominees have a way of revealing new projects timed to a given year’s voting window. Take, for example, Cate Blanchett—in a very on-brand move for the actor, if not Lydia Tár—starring in the video for “The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte,” the first single and title track from Sparks’s 26th studio album. But possibly more inspired is the tokusatsu-themed photo shoot that Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert directed for W Magazine, which, if nothing else, shows that the Daniels boys know how to keep their fingers on the zeitgeist (Jennifer Coolidge!) while still operating in their wheelhouse of whimsical, satiric surrealism.

Daniels, makers of one of the greatest music videos of all time, elaborated on everything that made Everything Everywhere All at Once possible when we interviewed them almost a year ago. And it’s wild to think about the trajectory of their film since then, as no one could have predicted that it was poised to become one of the most successful Oscar ponies in some time.

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Whatever they do next, we hope that Daniels keeps it real—that is, in the willfully strange but sincere realm where dudes form bonds with farting corpses and have to come to grips with one of their buds dying after having sex with a horse. On that note, I kicked myself the other day for not figuring out how to land a joke in my best actor prediction about Colin Farrell and Paul Mescal eating breakfast, lunch, and fucking dinner together the day after they lose the best actor Oscar to Austin Butler (or Brendan Fraser). And now that I think of it, a film about such wanton gluttony would very much be in Daniels’s “everything sucked into a bagel” wheelhouse.

Will Win: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Could Win: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Should Win: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

1 Comment

  1. I’ve been following this award ceremony for years. I’ve seen 8 of the best nominated films for Oscar 95. The Daniels film is a winner. Very unusual. As Actress Michelle Yeoh has said, it’s wild, wacky, weird, and wonderful. Sure, Spielberg’s film is wonderful, maybe a bit narcissistic. He has won before. I would prefer these awards go to others. I love Mr. Spielberg. Best actress should go to Michelle Yeoh. Best actor should go to Branden Fraser for his role in The Whale.

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