When the best films of the past year are honored at the Academy Awards this weekend, a movie with some strong ties to Massachusetts could be taking home the big prize.
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" Everything Everywhere All At Once," was directed by a duo known as The Daniels: Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, who's from Westborough, are both graduates of Emerson College. Ty Burr, a film critic who writes Ty Burr's Watch List on Substack, told Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel there's a good chance their movie will take center stage at the Oscars.
“If you haven't seen 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' yet, I would recommend you see that,” Burr said. “You strap yourself in and have the ride. It could quite possibly sweep all the major awards.”
The movie, about a woman named Evelyn Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, who has to connect with versions of herself from parallel universes to stop a powerful being from destroying it all, has 11 nominations, including best picture, best directing and best original screenplay.
“It's a movie that really does appeal to younger audiences,” Burr said. “And I think the Academy membership is at a point now where it's pretty equally balanced between the old guard and a lot of the younger voters, that they've really, really worked hard to bring in over the last five or six years.”
That dynamic will likely decide which movie wins best picture, Burr said.
“This is a year where we're going to see which group holds sway,” Burr said. “Whether 'Everything Everywhere All At Once,' with its unusual cast and a very unusual story and fast pace and multiverse plot, is going to prevail over something more old-fashioned like 'The Fabelmans,' Steven Spielberg's movie, or the dark horse of the season, 'All Quiet on the Western Front.'”
Burr’s frontrunner is still “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“It's been cleaning up on all the other awards circuits,” he said. “This is such a fast-paced, original movie. I know people who just don't like it because it demands attention and it comes at you really fast. I love it. And I think it's also a movie that benefits from more than one viewing.”
The movie is also nominated for four acting awards: lead actress Michelle Yeoh, supporting actresses Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis and supporting actor Ke Huy Quan.
“Ke Huy Quan of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is definitely going to win it,” Burr said. “He's won everything else. But it's such a wonderful human comeback story.”
Quan was a child actor who appeared in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” as Short Round, and played Data in “Goonies.” Burr said a win for him would be a wonderful culmination of his journey in Hollywood.
“And then he went on to not have a movie career in front of the camera at all, to his disappointment,” Burr said. "He did a lot of stunt work and stunt consulting. And then he's gifted this great role as Michelle Yeoh's husband who has many different personalities in the film, and he just knocks it out of the park. And he's been just so wonderfully happy and grateful to have this role and to be awarded and to have this attention. It's just really, really heartwarming to see.”