My Best Picture ballot

The Oscars have a preferential ballot, where members vote by ranking their choices for the categories. If I were a voter, this is how I would vote for Best Picture this year. Last year, I thought four out of eight nominees were undeserving. This year, six I completely endorse, two I understand, and only one do I think is flat out wrong.

1. Parasite. Who, or what, is the parasite? Is the rich family taking advantage of the poor, or is the poor family taking advantage of the rich? It's a comedy, a thriller, a horror film, and sometimes all three at the same time. I never knew where the film was going. Director Bong Joon Ho has delivered the film of the year, one that still has me mulling it over two months after I first saw it.

2. Little Women. The first time I saw it, I was impressed how much better Amy is defined than in other versions. The second time, I was impressed how much better Beth is defined than in other versions. Writer-director Greta Gerwig has taken a 150-year-old story and made it as vital as ever before, despite many other film versions.

3. Marriage Story. Writer-director Noah Baumbach has presented the story of a divorce in a way that both parties are right, and both are wrong. Instead of taking sides, I felt sorry about the process.

4. Jojo Rabbit. It sounds impossible. A child in Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler as an imaginary friend sounds like it would be horrible. Writer-director Taika Waititi finds a way to make a film which is both funny and heart-wrenching, and a lesson that prejudice is not natural, it is learned.

5. 1917. The single take feel, which sounds like a gimmick, actually places the viewer into World War I unlike any other war film. This makes it a film that is experienced rather than watched.

6. Ford v. Ferrari. It is technically well made, very entertaining reminder of what Oscar movies used to look like. Now it is considered a rarity in Hollywood. The racing scenes are as involving as any movie sports sequences ever.

7. The Irishman. There are great sequences. There are great performances. I don't think the 3 1/2 hours run-time is justified. Seeing it in a theater, I felt the run-time. I think it takes too long to get going and too long to wrap up, and that places this below six films that I think are more deserving.

8. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. This is 2/3 of a great film, with the portion around Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, about aging movie guys trying to figure out where they stand in late '60s Hollywood. But the other third of the film, featuring the Manson family and Sharon Tate, uses those characters only as symbols for something or other and provide no insight into their existence. I still recommend the film, but it is more flawed than the films above.

9. Joker. It's a middling film with a middling director and containing a great lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix. All I got from this film is that its makers wanted is for everyone to feel miserable about life and everything it contains.