Today I’m offering up one more ‘If I ran the Oscars’ post, identifying some nominations in below the line categories I wish had made the cut.

In each of the five categories I’ve chosen, I will also identify the actual nominee I would drop to allow room for my substitution.

I’ll start with Best Original Song, a category that almost always ignores the year’s best songs and instead focuses on Best Picture contenders plus the latest lazy effort by Diane Warren.

That’s the case this year, with ‘Like a Bird’ from Sing Sing joining two Emilia Perez songs, an Elton John documentary tie-in, and ‘The Journey,’ Warren’s eighth straight nomination (and 16th overall without a single win).

I would scrap all of those nominees in favor of this lineup:

‘Claw Machine’ – Sloppy Jane ft. Phoebe Bridgers (I Saw the TV Glow)
‘Harper and Will Go West’ – Kristen Wiig (Will & Harper)
‘I Ain’t in Kansas Anymore’ – Miranda Lambert (Twisters)
‘New Brain’ – Naomi Scott (Smile 2)
‘Starburned and Unkissed’ – Caroline Polachek (I Saw the TV Glow)

Sticking with the musical categories, I’ll turn to Best Original Score, where I would replace Wicked with Challengers.

I’m not sure how Wicked was even eligible here, as its score is largely made up of music from the Broadway production, and the newly written material features elements of The Wizard of Oz‘s score. Regardless, the brilliant electronic score of Challengers (by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) was exhilarating, and refreshingly unlike the usual orchestral work featured in this category.

Moving on to Best Visual Effects, I’m again kicking out Wicked (where the effects tended to hide the fact that the film was shot on large, practical sets) in favor of Twisters. The major effects work in that film is right there in the title — if you don’t believe the tornadoes are real, the movie simply doesn’t work.

For Best Cinematography, I’m pulling Emilia Perez in favor of Conclave, which was gorgeous to look at. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine turned the film’s claustrophobic setting into visual poetry.

Finally, I’m dropping Emilia Perez (again) from Best Editing, replacing it with Challengers. Challengers used a tennis match as a metaphor for its structure, bouncing back and forth between timelines and perspectives. The editing made all of that comprehensible, and threw in some flashy split screens as well.