All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Costume, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Adapted Screenplay   I don't know why we have to re-learn every year that War Is Bad but here we are.

Paul ( Felix Kammerer) is excited to join the Prussian Empire's army with his school friends.  They are promised honor and glory on the front line in France but are soon overwhelmed by the misery and terror of the trenches.

It took me six days to get through this movie, partly because of the subject matter and partly because it is over two and a half hours long.  Every single Best Picture nominee has been over two hours and I swear it has taken months off my life.

Did this movie need to be made?  Probably not.  It's interesting to see how the Germans viewed one of their major losses.  And obviously, you could double feature this with 1917 to see the victors' side.  I don't know why you'd do that to yourself but you could.

Best Picture is obviously on the table.  The Academy loves a war film that makes them feel bad.  They get to pretend to be all virtuous.  Cinematography was excellent.  Production Design, Hair and Makeup, Costumes, Sound, and Visual Effects are all related to the WWI setting but I think they'll get overlooked.  It's now my frontrunner for Original Score, though.  The drums fucked me up and that doesn't happen to me often.  Adapted Screenplay?  Ehhh.  It's definitely famous but I don't know if it was the best interpretation of the novel.

It's currently streaming on Netflix.