Several of this year’s Academy Awards contenders suffuse their work with a sense of California. Sometimes the place is up on the screen. Other times its influence is evident in the work of California-born-and-raised filmmakers, shaped and inspired by the state’s inhabitants and idiosyncrasies.
The most notable examples are the Best Picture front-runners: One Battle After Another and Sinners. Wild rides both, and each in its own way politically arch, the movies were directed by native sons: the San Fernando Valley’s Paul Thomas Anderson and Oakland’s Ryan Coogler, respectively. But these two filmmakers aren’t the only ones in this year’s Academy Awards field who injected their films with homegrown sensibilities. So, here are a few of this year’s California nominees to inform your watching on Sunday.
Actor in a Supporting Role
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
The Los Angeles–born actor’s embodiment of archvillain Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw gets funnier, darker, and maybe—this is scary—truer with each viewing. Penn said that working with Anderson on a character as dismayingly, dangerously gonzo as his was a surprising journey. “Sometimes, even in the most torturous stuff, I just find it’s such a giggle because it’s a view through an original mind,” said Penn in an interview with a production studio. “And I think we don’t see enough of that in the movies.”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Lindo may have been born in London, but his time in the Bay Area—first as a student at the American Conservatory Theater and then as an Oakland resident—fed his mesmerizing depth, as evidenced in his portrayal of the harmonica-playing bluesman Delta Slim. Before an audience at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater, Lindo explained that the film’s sensibility was “born, bred, and nurtured in Oakland.”
Actress in a Leading Role
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Hudson is the kind of Angeleno who has stories about running around the Forum during Kings games as a teenager when Jeanie Buss was managing the joint. Hudson is now in her second season portraying a Buss-like head of a Los Angeles NBA team in the Netflix series Running Point, and she’s scoring. But it’s her performance in Song Sung Blue—as one half of a Neil Diamond tribute duo, opposite Hugh Jackman—that was so unexpected. The Christmas Day box office opening didn’t allow much time for audiences to go abuzz about her touchingly credible performance ahead of awards season. If only the movie had had legs, Hudson might be a serious Oscar contender.
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Sinners, Ryan Coogler
The story of Coogler’s writing of Sinners has the same fever-dream energy of the film’s dance scene at Club Juke. According to a New Yorker profile, the writer-director was at home in Oakland, washing dishes and listening to bluesman Howlin’ Wolf’s rousing “’Wang Dang Doodle” when he stopped and began writing. The resulting screenplay calls forth the ancestors—as well as some unsavory vampires.
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson’s first adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel, the noirish Inherent Vice, was stubbornly faithful to the postmodernist’s words. For One Battle After Another, the director uses Pynchon’s Vineland (1990) as a platform from which to launch and land a near-perfect dive into the recurring madness of California. “Vineland was going to be hard to adapt,” Anderson said in an interview with a production studio. “Instead, I stole the parts that really resonated with me…with [Pynchon’s] blessing.”
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar
Director and cowriter Bentley’s story about a railway laborer in the Pacific Northwest during the early 20th century is deeply entwined with California author Denis Johnson, who wrote the 2011 novella on which the film is based. In a movie review for Alta Journal, John Freeman describes protagonist Robert Grainier as “always on the cusp of understanding this great mystery.” The same could be said of Johnson and his relationship to his adopted home. When Johnson moved to California, he translated its strangeness and beauty in his work. It’s an understanding of place that flows through Grainier and the people he encounters.
Music (Original Song)
“Dear Me,” Diane Warren
”Dear Me,” music and lyrics by Diane Warren and performed by Kesha, a
This is the 17th Best Original Song nomination for the Van Nuys–raised star of the biographical documentary Diane Warren: Relentless. But Warren is still without a win—a streak the documentary makes clear is infuriating to her friends and fans. After all, Warren is the writer behind iconic movie songs—“How Do I Live” (Con Air), “Because You Loved Me” (Up Close and Personal)—and hit singles including Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” and Toni Braxton’s “Un-break My Heart.” In 2013, Warren collaborated with Taylor Swift on the pop star’s single “Say Don’t Go.”
Documentary Short Film
All the Empty Rooms, Joshua Seftel
In the opening scene of the documentary, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp stand outside the Santa Clarita home of Frank and Nancy Blackwell. They take a beat, and then knock on the door. Blackwell’s 14-year-old son, Dominic, was killed along with 15-year-old Gracie Muehlberger in the 2019 shooting at Saugus High School by a fellow student. In All the Empty Rooms (directed by Seftel), Hartman visits the homes—more specifically the bedrooms—of children killed in school shootings. Hartman’s talent for humane reporting is in full force as he and Bopp navigate the ongoing heartache of four sets of surviving parents.
Live Action Short Film
The Singers, Sam A. Davis
In this 18-minute film directed by Davis, Los Angeles dive bar culture gets its close-up when a ragged collection of barstool regulars has a sing-off at the bartender’s urging. The prize is a hundred-dollar bill stuck somewhere amid all the dollar bills hanging from the tavern ceiling. The La Habra Moose Lodge gives a fine turn as the bar—a gathering place for weathered souls, several of whom have real musical talent.
Cinematography
Sinners, Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Oxnard-born, Bay Area–raised cinematographer Arkapaw is the first woman of color to be nominated in this category. For Sinners, Arkapaw operated a 65-pound large-format camera, making her the first woman to shoot a full feature on IMAX. In addition to working with Coogler, she’s helped Gia Coppola capture the mise-en-scène in Palo Alto and the tender decline of an aging performer in The Last Showgirl. •
Lisa Kennedy writes about film, theater, and culture. She lives in Denver, teaches nonfiction writing, and is at work on Icarus Ascending, a memoir set during the early years of the AIDS crisis. Since returning to the West after years on the East Coast, she has often looked to Joan Didion to grapple with writing about place.
