The Signal Fire Alternative Oscars!

1st Annual Knoscars | The Matchbook | 3.20.26

The 98th Academy Awards came and went this weekend, and while I missed a lot of it, and must admit to not having seen a great number of the movies that were nominated and awarded, we did see quite a few and as such had some thoughts on the winners, the losers, and the categories they didn’t include.

SO, for the very first time ever, I’m going to award my very own Signal Fire Oscars to whom I believe should have won, and give a brief explanation why. The “KnOscars” cause you know, I’m Tyler KNOTT Gregson (and KnottScars sounds like a wound) and all. Here’s who I thought should have won for a few of the biggies, and a few categories that don’t exist, but should. Let’s go…

Best Picture - Train Dreams

Unlike the real awards, I’ll start with the big kahuna first so if you wanna skip the rest you can. I know time is tight. For me, this was between two films, Train Dreams, and Hamnet. I absolutely adored One Battle After Another, and found Sinners to be a really fun, timely, vampire movie that delivered a wholloping message too, but in the end it was between the first two, only. Hamnet, to me, was ferociously beautiful, and it was some of the best acting I’ve ever seen in my entire life, but still, but still, Train Dreams takes it for me for one reason: It’s so much harder to make some stunning bit of art about something so very, very simple. An ordinary man living an ordinary life and showing how astonishingly extraordinary that truly is. Everywhere around us, billions of little movies are being lived out, and each person is the main character in them. How stunning to be able to witness one in this way. The film moved me, it hurt me, it ached, it sang, it asked me to step back and look again at this wild life. That’s art, to me. That’s Best Picture.

Best Actress - Jessie Buckley

Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

There’s not even a half-contest here. The Oscars got it right, this time. They nailed it. Her portrayal of Agnes was nuanced, it was witchy, it was gentle, it was wise, it was so grounded it hurt, and all of that was before she really got going. Her scream (you know the one) was improvised, and her grief was so stifling, so suffocating, so body-altering, that you felt her loss as though it was yours. Watching her watch the stage production of Hamlet with such confusion, such irritation, such wonder, you felt like you weren’t watching acting at all, but that you were secretly intruding and spying on a very real human being in very real times. Sarah and I were lucky enough to visit Stratford-upon-Avon two years back, we stood where Shakespeare was literally born, stood where Hamnet passed, saw where they were all laid to rest, and this movie felt different because of it. Mothers are a miracle, and her portrayal of one will stay with me forever.

Best Actor - Leonardo DiCaprio

No offense whatsoever to Michael B. Jordan, but this one the Oscars got wrong. I think, for me, when I think of “Best” awards for acting it always comes down to a few things in my mind. First is: How much did they have to DO? Michael B. Jordan in Sinners, I didn’t feel had to “do” much. He did a fantastic job in the role(s) he was given, but I think those roles just felt like he feels in so many Other roles he’s already played. He felt like he felt in Creed, only Southern, he felt like he feels in so many things, so to me, he didn’t have to DO much. Leonardo DiCaprio is a lot of things, some of them not great, but one thing he IS is a great actor. He transforms the writing to something else, he embodies it, he becomes it, and it’s even more impressive to me how far away the characters he plays are from the person and persona he exhibits. He had so much to DO in this film, and the fact that he did it so well whilst also making his character so bumbling and somehow loveable is a testament to just how damn good he is. His character is unforgettable in a film of so many unforgettable roles, and to me, he just DID so much more. Many will probably disagree, and that’s ok. These are my Knoscars after all. :) Supporting Actor award shoulda been a tie too, and Benecio needed it.

Best Cinematography - Train Dreams

Again, for me the Oscars boned this one. Train Dreams, shot almost entirely in natural light, in the Pacific Northwest, in the most breathtaking, majestic, almost honorary way, blew me out of every bit of water that you could be blown out of. It felt REAL, it felt so insanely close to home having grown up in Montana, and it felt like a eulogy for a place that is so rapidly disappearing, a time that’s now gone, but a quality of light that only exists here, in this place. I understand that Sinners did a lot of amazing things, had a lot of exquisite shots, but you could feel the production in that film. Train Dreams felt like you were there, like you could have seen it with your own eyes, if only you knew the way to see beauty that way. Oof.

Best Soundtrack/Score - A TIE! The Life of Chuck + Train Dreams

Turns out, the Knoscars and the Oscars both have a TIE this year! For me, the score does almost as much as anything else in a film for truly setting the tone, the emotional resonance, and the way I feel when the credits roll. Two did that more than any other this year, Train Dreams for certain, but also, if I HAD to give it to just one, I’d give it to The Life of Chuck, as it moved me in a way nothing else did. I like music that makes me want to cry, and makes me want to sit on some mountaintop and stare out at some fading light. This is that. Easy.

Best Funnest Movie Experience - Thunderbolts*

I just absolutely loved this film, so much so I spoke about it on an old Matchbook post before. It is, to me, the best not only Marvel film ever made, but also just one of the best movies of the year. By far the most fun I had watching a movie over the year that was. I adore Florence Pugh, I fell in love with the entire message of this movie, and I just wanted to start it over the moment it was done. The Oscars need this category, the movie that just felt most fun to sit and watch. They have feelings too.

Best Goosebump Moment Award - 28 Years Later

Ok, this movie actually could have been a runner-up for me for Cinematography too, as the WHOLE DAMN THING was shot on iPhones. No, really. This award however, goes to the Goosebump Moment Award, and while I won’t spoil it, I’ll just say it comes near the end of the film, and you’ll know it when you see it, and the photo above gives a hint. When this moment happened, the way it was shot, the music, the acting, everything, hit me like a ton of bricks and I cried and just felt alive in such a profound way. Goosebumps everywhere. That’s the mark of this Knoscars Award, the spread of those little bumps speaking to reaching a deeper place than most others. This is that.

Best I Don’t Get The Hype - Weapons

I’m sorry for all who loved it, I’m sorry to Amy Madigan who deserved an Oscar before this, but I just didn’t like this film. I didn’t find it scary, I didn’t find it fun, I didn’t find it good, mysterious, or anything else. I thought the floating gun scene was way too on the nose and tried to make a powerful statement by just making it rather than earning it, and I thought it was very much “meh” the entire time. I went into it thinking it’d be phenomenal and spooky, and left just mimicking the way the kids run outside to make Sarah laugh. Yeah. Sorry, but not sorry.

Best Nostalgia Trip - Happy Gilmore 2

Plain and simple, I felt like high school me again. I felt young, I felt like everything was ahead of me, and I felt like anything was possible. I know that’s silly, but seeing all those from the first back in this silly film was magical, and I loved it. Bad Bunny stole every scene he was in, Adam Sandler reminded me of simpler times, and I just laughed in a goofy immature way most of the way through the whole damn thing. By no means is this a GOOD movie, but it’s a fucking Awesome one. That’s all that matters sometimes I think.

There you have it folks! I hope you enjoyed this, and I’d love to know some of YOUR picks for awards that were, or weren’t given out, and even the categories YOU would include!

Also, if you wanna help make MORE posts like this, you can absolutely join the family. We’d really really love to have you.

I love you all.

Be good.