Good morning! Was is just me and my obsessive love for these kinds of things or was the Oscars last night…good? Like, really fun and celebratory and serious when it needed to be, but never taking itself too seriously? Maybe … Continue reading →
Happy Oscars weekend! It has been such a strong year, and I managed to watch most of the main category nominees out of genuine interest early in the season, so today’s post is a couple of Indie Spirit nominees I … Continue reading →
A two show weekend! And over all, the Indie Spirits kept the fun of the SAGs the night before rolling. There was, as it will become obvious in the clips below, a damper put on the afternoon by a group … Continue reading →
I think that the SAG Awards are my favorite precursor. The Oscars are, of course, my favorite holiday, and I do think it’s important that we acknowledge all the different artists and technicians that make movies (on the broadcast please), … Continue reading →
We are rolling into a busy last few weeks of awards season (I’m still not used to SAG being this late in the year? I wonder if they’ll ever go back to their pre-Covid January slot, but I guess the strikes probably delayed things this year…)
Once again, the BritBox app on my television refused to let me watch this?! But thankfully it worked on my laptop, still wishing for a return to the BBC America broadcast, but since even the SAG Awards are moving to streaming this year it seems that is most likely a pipe dream.
Anyway, enough logistical griping, it was a pretty fun show! I wish they didn’t keep quite so many awards off broadcast, especially since it is on streaming and they could just…let the show be long, but I really enjoyed David Tenant as host (never not enjoyed him in anything to be honest) and though I wasn’t surprised by any of the winners, there are still some races that feel alittle open, which is fun. Here are my highlights:
Enjoyed the whole dog bit, and have always enjoyed Michael Sheen and David Tenant’s dynamic. (Side note, while Hamish was pretending to be frozen, Tim and I were trying to cast my laptop onto the TV and I literally couldn’t tell if it was working, which was a funny little meta moment.)
I reiterate that Justine Triet is the coolest person this awards season, and her partner is also hilarious:
The one win that truly shocked me was Cord Jefferson for Adapted Screenplay, not because it’s not deserved, it totally is, but because the BAFTAs don’t tend to go for things like movies with “America” in the title. (Though Tim did suggest that it may be because it makes a mockery of America, which, might be right.) Either way, thrilled about this. But, hilariously, Cord’s speech is one of the very few (maybe the only?) not currently uploaded to the BAFTA YouTube, so trust me…he won and was charming, but very American.
Robert Downey Jr. is going to win an Oscar, and he’s been giving good speeches all season:
Also – everything he keeps saying about being in the MCU is infinitely more damning than any criticism Scorsese or any other “auteur” has leveled against comic book movies.
Also going to win an Oscar Da’Vine! And I just adore her:
Zone of Interest won both Foreign Language Film and British Film which is…funny? I don’t know, it’s hard to say anything related to that film is funny, but the silliness of categories is fun to point out. Anyway, this speech isn’t funny, but it is important:
Really wish I could find a clip of Hugh Grant looking miserable while he recites an Oompa Loompa poem to present this award to Chris Nolan, but that’s fine:
Also the younger brother he mentions in this, ended up going to high school in Chicago, and sounds very American, and then they have another brother who is a con man and is (or at least was) in prison, and I don’t really have a point, I just need you all to know it, because I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about the Nolan family and neither Chris nor Jonathan seem likely to ever talk about it, but I would love to see a Nolan film about the Nolan family.
Samantha Morton is wonderful, and her Fellowship is very well deserved, but it is weird to watch her generation of actors age into lifetime achievement awards, because I remember when she was young and cool. (To be clear, she is still very cool, but you know what I mean.)
Mia McKenna-Bruce is great in How To Have Sex, and she was adorable winning Rising Star:
Best Actor is still an open race I think, and though I’m leaning toward Paul, Cillian was apparently the first Irish-born actor to win a Best Actor BAFTA, which is insane:
The fact that the British Academy didn’t even nominate Lily Gladstone, means that to me, this Best Actress race was completely illegitimate, and if people use it to say that Emma has “momentum” towards her second Oscar I will scream at them. (More accurately, I will scream at Tim, who has nothing to do with this and doesn’t deserve it, but that’s what being married to me is like.)
Emma is great in Poor Things even though I don’t love that movie, and I find her very charming, this is not about hating her, it is about loving Lily.
Always great to see Michael J. Fox:
And then Oppenheimer won, which, I think at this point isn’t a surprise to anyone, and though it’s not my pick for Best Picture, it’s definitely not one that’s going to make me angry:
Also, apparently, a guy on stage with them was not in any way affiliated with the film which is funny, because he didn’t do anything?
Fashion wise, it was kind of a snooze fest, a lot of black, with occasional red, and lots of open backs that connected to cut outs I didn’t particularly care for. There was some sparkly fun though. Here were my favs:
Claire Foy in Armani Privé (Photo Credit: Alan Chapman/Dave Bennett/Getty Images)
Deepika Padukone in Sabyasachi (Photo Credit: John Phillips/Getty Images)
Dua Lipa in Valentino (Photo Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage)
Ayo Edibiri in Bottega Veneta (Photo Credit: John Phillips/Getty Images)
Mia McKenna-Bruce in Carolina Herrera (Photo Credit: Corbis Entertainment/Getty Images)
Fantasia Barrino in Benchellal haute couture (Photo Credit: Alan Chapman/Dave Bennett/Getty Images)
Carey Mulligan in vintage Dior (Photo Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage)
We now have all the nominations! And, while my viewing has slowed down a little bit, I’m actually glad this post isn’t going up in the week of the Oscar noms announcement, because the unexpected distribution of nominations for Barbie really broke some brains on the internet and I don’t want to be perceived as wading into that at all. Beyond saying, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie are both immensely talented women who were nominated for Oscars this year for their work on an incredibly commercially and critically successful film, which is nominated for Best Picture. And everyone should go outside and take a deep breath, or even better go to the movies! Go even when it’s not a cultural (or marketing) event you feel you need to be part of. If you saw more movies each year I think you would be happy rather than angry that the love gets spread to more films/filmmakers. Last year’s sweep was kinda boring!
(That being said, would love for the Academy to remember that more than one woman can be directed for Best Picture in the same year. They should try it out a few more times, since they only did it once.)
OK, now on to reviews! I have now seen all of the Academy’s Best Picture nominees (ranked list will be on my Twitter and Threads) and caught up with a few Indie Spirit and BAFTA picks too.
The second post (with no images or anything, because I had no idea what I was doing) on this blog was just me gushing over Andrew Haigh‘s debut feature Weekend. So, when I saw that he had a new movie with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal making the festival rounds last year my countdown and jealousy at festival attendees) began. So, what feels like close to a full year later, it finally came to my theater.
In some ways, it feels very reminiscent of Weekend, two gay men who have trouble connecting fall fitfully in something like love with each other. There’s a sexual frankness that I don’t find voyeuristic (unlike, say, Passages). But, this time it’s all layered on tope of a ghost story/potential ketamine hallucination that in some ways felt like we were watching Scott’s character undergo inner-child therapy. (If you haven’t seen the trailer, he’s able, somehow, to visit his parents at the age they were when they died.)
The acting is superb, the lighting is beautiful, the soundtrack evocative and perfect. But, I think in the end I may have been over-warned about how much this would destroy me emotionally, it worked on the whole for me as a metaphorical exploration of loneliness and as a ghost story. And Haigh is still on my list of favorite working directors.
The debut feature from poet Raven Jackson, there’s a lot to love about this portrait of a Black girl coming of age in the rural south sometime in the 20th century, but I had trouble connecting to it. The fact that Jackson is a poet was important context for me, because it feels like an adaptation of a poem – nonlinear narrative, lingering symbolic visuals, recurring motifs, lack of exposition. Which can all be beautiful, and as individual elements are often beautiful in this film, but over the 97 minutes run started to feel a bit ponderous.
Might have worked better for me as a short film, since what is often most powerful in poetry comes from its concision.
I feel like its almost a cliche to say this at this point, but my main reaction to this was “is that really what French trials are like?” Because goddamn they could really just say whatever they want and introduce whatever they want into evidence literally at any point?! Like, I know that the American legal system is a shitshow, but at least we have an idea of order.
What the French system, or at least the version of it that Justine Triet shows us here, allows for is a dialogue that feels like a play, which quickly becomes a philosophical exercise about marriage, commitment, and truth under the guise of a courtroom procedural. It’s talky and very European, but it also includes a very funny use of the song “P.I.M.P.”
Also, best child and dog performances of the year.
I was quietly dreading the fact that this movie was definitely going to be nominated for things, because even just the score in the trailer made my skin crawl. And, quiet dread pretty much sums up the way I felt watching it.
A portrait of Rudolph Hoss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, and his family, it’s a Holocaust movie where all of the violence is just out of frame. We hear shots and screams and know, of course, the cause of the ever present smoke, but it all remains “over the wall.”
The phrase “the banality of evil” has itself been repeated to the point of banality, but writer-director Jonathan Glazer, literalizes it on screen in a way that really got under my skin. The casual venality of Hoss’s wife (Sandra Hüller) contrasted quietly with her mother’s (Imogen Kogge) dawning horror of the reality of her daughter’s newfound prosperity, will haunt me for a long time.
I’ve subscribed to Suleika Jaouad‘s Substack “The Isolation Journals” since 2020 so, I knew a lot about her and her husband, the musician and composer Jon Batiste, before this movie but I’m still really glad I watched it. Originally conceived of as a short film tracking Batiste’s process composing his “American Symphony” to debut at Carnegie Hall, it ballooned in length as the life around the art got more complicated (and compelling). Batiste was nominated for 11 Grammys on the same day that Jouad learned that her leukemia had returned after 10 years in remission.
Director Matthew Heineman does a great job illustrating the stark contrasts of their daily lives, while also highlighting their clear love for each other. The musical rehearsal sequences were wonderful (is there somewhere to listen to the whole symphony?) But I found Batiste’s piano improvisations the most moving sections of the film, particularly one he dedicates to Suleika after he gets a rough update call for him when he’s on tour. It’s heavy, but hopeful, and on Netflix, you should watch it.
With this week’s (truly baffling) BAFTA nominations, there are now only the Oscar nominations (this Tuesday!) to complete this year’s too long list of things I have assigned myself to see! But as a good reminder of why I choose to so torture myself, I saw some fun stuff the last few weeks!
I have long been in talent-love with George Michael, so I know completely that I am biased when In tell you all that this is a great music documentary and you should all watch it immediately. But I also have been telling people that since I saw it in July and I don’t think anyone has taken my advice, because I think people remember Wham! as silly 80s Day-Glo popstars, which they were, but they were also really talented and George in particular was a genius. (Based on his words in this movie, I don’t think Andrew Ridgeley would mind me signaling Michael out.) It’s a rags to riches to story and a tale of the warping effects of fame that never gets too melodramatic. Plus, you get to listen to George Michael songs the whole time, what could be better. It’s on Netflix, please watch it.
There is a moment in this movie where Joaquin Phoenix‘s Napoleon (in keeping with Ridley Scott‘s stated recent stance that he doesn’t care about period or region specific dialects) speaking in his American accent, says to a British diplomat “You guys think you’re so great because you’ve got boats.” And while I appreciate the fact that Scott and his team clearly have no interest in the Great Man as Hero of History model of storytelling, I unfortunately couldn’t figure out which model they had chosen instead.
If the whole thing had been as absurd as that scene I think I would have had fun, but the battles were shot seriously (and graphically – don’t see this if you care about horses). While I always love to see Vanessa Kirby (Josephine) the marriage plot here reminded me far too much of a horrible romance novel I read once about her.
I appreciate the nonchalance of Scott’s energy when it comes to a press tour or awards season, but I wish he’d bring a little more care to his actual films than is evidenced here.
Emerald, Emerald, Emerald…I want to both hug and slap you. There is so much campy goodness in this movie. The lighting! The Livestrong bracelets and casually popped collars! The Bloc Party and MGMT needle drops calibrated to make people exactly my age feel wistful for a time of Jaeger Bombs and ill-advised dorm make outs. Your casting was perfect: Rosamund Pike has maybe never been funnier, Barry Keoghan sulks so wonderfully, and Alison Oliver‘s bland fragility is well executed. (Jacob Elordi is also great, may someday have to write an essay about his movie star career being launched by the adoring lenses of two female auteurs.)
But – the plot – you lost it, seemed to have found it, and then stayed so close to the map that every attempt to shock became more boring, but somehow still as baffling than the one before it. I could ramble on for awhile, but in the end I think this amounts to a lot of very fun style hiding that there isn’t much substance.
Fun period detail, in this scene the family has all gathered to watch Superbad
Someone texted me while I was watching this Indie Spirit nominee and I summed it up parenthetically as “good, sad, very quiet” and I feel like that kind of says it all.
The story of a trans woman (Trace Lysette) who returns home to the small town she grew up in when her mom (Patricia Clarkson) is dying there’s not a lot of plot, but there is a lot of staring with emotional intent. The two central performances are great, and the story is well told, but co-writer/director Andrea Pallaoro seemed to have gone to the Koganana-making-Columbus school of shot framing: oblique, face obscuring, distance-emphasizing. All of which I found distracting. The power of this movie is in Lysette’s face, stop shooting everything from behind!
(Also, this is silly, but my actual favorite performance last year from Lysette was in her TikTok ridiculing Dave Chapelle for his transphobic “comedy.”)
Well, it’s the first move of the awards cycle that I wish I had seen before the New Year so I could include it on my Top Ten list (come on film distributors, people in midsize cites like good movies too!). This trailer started showing at my local theater what feels like 6 months ago, and I’ve been waiting!
The preview is hilarious, but thankfully does not include all the good jokes – genuinely I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud in the theater. (My husband, who also loved it, remarked on the walk home, “how come no one makes comedies anymore, that was so great?”). And the movie works great as a satire of the high brow, mostly white, culture world that could stand to deflate a bit, without becoming knee-jerkily anti-intellectual.
But, what the marketing didn’t prepare me for was the genuinely moving famiyl drama that is truly at the heart of this. Jeffrey Wright is a great anchor, and many of the supporting turns are wonderful. (Sterling K. Brown is from STL, why did we have to wait until January to see this?!?) I particularly loved Wright’s sibling dynamic with Tracee Ellis Ross and missed her when she wasn’t onscreen.
Tim, who listened to this more than watched it with me, asked as it ended, “was the organizing principle of this just ‘isn’t Nikki Giovanni fun?'” And I think essentially, yes, if you include brilliance and talent in your definition of “fun,” which I do.
The whole time watching it, I kept thinking of the Elaine Stritch documentary from like ten years ago, which I wasn’t expecting, they aren’t artists I have ever thought of in the same breath before, but the structure of the docs – follow a legend around while they cope with aging, interspersed with older archival footage of them at their most famous – is very similar, and similarly affecting.
Both of these women live (or lived in the case of Ms. Stritch) truly unapologetically, which is obviously for Giovanni a source of pride, but also pain – relationships seem to be a struggle for her. But it’s truly inspiring to see portraits of women who have actually stopped giving a damn about the comfort of others as it pertains to their choices for their own lives.
The archival material is handled very beautifully here, and I really want to track down and watch the full interview of Giovanni and James Baldwin that is excerpted at many points in this, because it was suffused with so much love even when they were disagreeing with each other.
Hello! For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter or Threads missed the announcement that a delayed flight kept me from enjoying the Critics Choice Awards this year, so I don’t have a round up for that (love that Paul won, sad that Lily lost, Colman Domingo was the Best Dressed), but since the strike delayed the Emmys I didn’t have to wait long at all to get my awards show fix.
I don’t follow TV as closely as film so the Emmys aren’t always as fascinating for me, but I thought last night’s show was fun! I liked the 75th Anniversary reunions of classic shows (though I had a few gripes with how some of them went). My husband and I were finishing an episode of The Sopranos so I missed the monologue, but I liked the running gag of Anthony Anderson’s mom yelling “baby, I love you, but you gotta get off the stage” at people as opposed to playing them off. (Though I continue to be in the camp of acceptance speeches should be as long as they want, they are actually the point of the evening, if you don’t like them, you don’t like awards shows, which is a fine opinion to have, but I don’t think awards shows shows should be designed to try to appease people who fundamentally don’t like them.)
Anyway, my experience of the night started off emotionally with Christina Applegate being a badass:
And then Ayo! (She’s in Supporting here instead of Lead because The Bear awards last night were all for Season 1, because the eligibility calendar was for a show in September). Then Quinta! Which is a wonderful back to back to start the night:
Love Jennifer Coolidge, love that she has never once given a speech that didn’t have to be cut off, but she’s a great example here of my new awards show pet peeve – GIVE THE WINNERS SOMEWHERE TO PUT THEIR AWARDS – they need their hands sometimes and it is silly to make them put them on the ground!!!!
I’m happy for Matthew Macfayden, but I’m also glad that Succession being over means we will get him back in period pieces again soon:
Also love Pedro’s call out to the ongoing fake feud with Kieran Culkin this awards season.
I get that watching people from the same 2 shows win in almost every category got a little repetitive and I can’t speak to Succession, but The Bear is truly the best show on television at the moment in my opinion and I am so happy for both of these men:
Speaking of awards categories getting too predictable, I appreciate that they finally shift John Oliver out of the Talk Show category because what he does and what the every night late night shows do is fundamentally different. Have always loved his speeches:
I don’t like that the Dahmer show exists (I refuse to learn the strangely worded title correctly), but I am glad that Niecy Nash-Betts now has an Emmy:
Also – Marla Gibbs looks amazing!
I was too young to really be a Cheers person, but I feel like it was on enough in my childhood that it really warmed my heart to see them:
Can we get Brett Goldstein and Juno Temple together in another show? They’re so charming:
Also I know, I need to watch Beef
As an ER is better than Grey’s person (go ahead and fight me), and I don’t think you should get a “reunion” moment for a show that’s still on, I did like bringing Katherine Heigl back into the fold:
Wasn’t expecting a Lin Manuel Mirana speech from this guy, but it was a fun way to mix it up. Though SPIT OUT YOUR GUM! You are on national television, swallow it on the way to the stage!
I think the best presenting bit, by far, came from Amy and Tina returning to the Weekend Update set:
And now Elton is an EGOT!! So fun!
OK, OK, I’ll watch Beef:
Honestly sad that we only have one more potential Kieran Culkin speech:
Sarah Snook (whom – as I will always remind you – a girl in bar once said I look like) was adorable talking about her daughter:
I have really enjoyed how The Bear has been passing around who accepts for them, even though Matty went off the rails with it:
Congrats to the dramas next year that Succession will no longer be in your category!
Fashion wise, it was a pretty boring night, a lot of black and white, and dark velvets (I get it, it’s winter, but come on!) Here were my bright spots:
Jessica Chastain in Gucci (Photo Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Ayo Edebiri in custom Louis Vuitton (Photo Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Meghann Fahy in Armani (Photo Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Sarah Snook in Vivienne Westwood (Photo Credit: Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)
Marin Hinkle in Marchesa (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Jenna Ortega in Dior Haute Couture (Photo Credit: Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angele Times)
Taraji P. Henson in Versace (Photo Credit: Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Lizzy Caplan in vintage Yohji Yamamoto (Photo Credit: Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Simona Tabasco in Marni (Photo Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Annaleigh Ashford in Carolina Herrera (Photo Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Happy Awards Season! The Golden Globes have long been known to be a bit of a mess, and last night’s show was both a continuation of that tradition and (mostly in terms of who won) a refreshing break from it.
I’m not going to subject you all to any amount of Jo Koy. It was cringey, and once it started to not work he started to throw his writers under the bus. The jokes about Barbie sucked and, in the end I think Taylor’s face says it all.
Honestly, moving on to the good news – Da’Vine Joy Randolph won Best Supporting Actress:
Robert Downey Jr. is getting some flack on film Twitter for beating Charles Melton, but he’s great in Oppenheimer, and he gives a great speech:
I haven’t watched Beef yet, but I absolutely love how emotional Ali Wong got about her win, and I also love that she wore her glasses:
Also, love Steven Yuen, should probably watch the show:
Speaking of shows I still haven’t seen, Succession won a bunch last time (I’m just getting around to The Sopranos right now, TV takes me time.) But, I have loved Matthew Macfadyen for a long time, and it was very fun to watch him win:
As I already said, the host sucked (as in he literally seemed to suck the energy out of the room every time he was on stage), and a lot of the presenters bits were fun but went on a little too long, but I really liked this one in particular:
I really need to see Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet seems just son cool:
The Bear is not a comedy, but I love Jeremy Allen White:
Ayo Forever:
Keiran Culkin telling Pedro Pascal to “suck it” was a great reminder, that even though I haven’t watched the show, I am going to miss this band of weirdos on the awards circuit:
Honestly, I won’t be mad if Christopher Nolan sweeps director this year:
Margot Robbie was robbed, I love Emma Stone, she’s very good in Poor Things but this feels like a “most acting” beats “best acting” win – she’s very charming though:
Cillian! Andrew Scott’s joy for Cillian! Ireland! Getting censored for saying “fecking!”
I wish Barbie would have won something other than the made up box office award, but always happy to see Greta holding a statue:
The Bear is the best thing on TV and since I cannot control that they are mischaracterized I will just celebrate that they had Lionel Boyce accept the award:
I might have shared this on the blog before, but one time a woman at a bar told me she thought I was Sarah Snook and I will hold on to that compliment forever:
PAUL GIAMATTI!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eyeroll to Poor Things winning Best Comedy, but I love how Yorgos Lanthimos spent his speech just fanning out at Bruce Springsteen, that’s relatable:
The only time I cried all night was for Lily Gladstone’s perfect speech for her perfect performance:
Past Lives is my best picture of the year, but I can’t be mad at an Oppenheimer win – love Emma Thomas, even though she rambled:
Fashion wise there was a lot of glitter and a lot of randomly placed tulle, some worked better for me than others:
Julianne Moore in Bottega Veneta (Photo Credit: Jon Kopaloff/WireImage)
Issa Rae in Pamella Roland (Photo Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Amanda Seyfried in Armani Privé (Photo Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
The first awards show of the year is this weekend! And yes, the Golden Globes are trash, but they are making PR attempts to be slightly less trash, and I will be happy to give them a chance (especially because I’ll be on a flight during the Critic’s Choice this year and I don’t want have to wait until February for my first telecast!) I did manage to catch up with some of the Globes comedies that I missed (aka avoided) earlier in the year, here are my thoughts:
This is a good Sunday afternoon on TNT movie. (It’s on Netflix, but you know what I mean.) A genre of sports biopic I enjoy, but wish could exist outside of awards conversations. (Bring back the mid-budget studio movie!)
Not that Annette Bening and Jodie Foster aren’t good – they’re great! They’re Annette Bening and Jodie Foster! And I really enjoyed their chemistry, and appreciated a film about female friendship that wasn’t about Female Friendship. It’s genuinely bold to make a movie about an unlikeable woman who is still inspirational.
“Raunchy” isn’t my favorite descriptor for a comedy, so even when this started getting good reviews I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna be for me. But, it (mostly) surprised me. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman bring more charm and heart to this than the premise deserves and laughed out loud every time Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur were onscreen. Tropey and predictable, but more fun than I was expecting.
I did not expect to be seeing this when I first saw the picture of Timothée Chalamet looking like Gonzo from The Muppet Christmas Carol, but then I heard it was written and directed by Paul King who made my beloved Paddington 2 and I was in. This doesn’t rise to that level (few films do) and for a musical the songs are pretty forgettable (probably because they had to match the range of a decidedly not-a-singer Chalamet) but overall I enjoyed myself and was charmed by the razzle-dazzle.
Does this movie need to exist? No. But, it was a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon, even if only to think about how miserable Hugh Grant must have been making it.
The trailers for this made me nervous. Yorgos Lanthimos sometimes veers too close to horror for my comfort and I couldn’t tell how much of a Frankenstein story this was. And, it wasn’t scary, but I’m not as rapturous as a lot of film Twitter (or Threads) is about it either.
Lanthimos’s wavelength of self-conscious strangeness is hard for me to click into, and this in many ways feels peak-him. Emma Stone embodies this artificiality wonderfully, but that kind of artifice keeps me personally at an arms length from any emotional core of the story.
I know, I know, this is a “fable.” The artifice is part of the point, but the story being told – essentially what it would be like to discover patriarchy without socialization into it, is super interesting, and I would have liked to have felt closer. (Writing that out I’m realizing, that’s also basically the plot of Barbie, which I found much more fun.)
My main disconnect comes from the fact that the first half of this movie equates the act of sex with liberation in a way I found frankly kind of boring. Once Stone’s Bella discovers philosophy the whole thing got much more interesting. Although, I didn’t like the animal hybrid body horror stuff (personal ick), I did appreciate the steampunk production design.
I’ve read this book, seen the 1985 film and the Broadway revival of the musical. So, I’ve obviously long found this story compelling and worthy of interpretation, but I’m not sure I needed this film version. There’s great performances, especially Danielle Brooks (who I saw on stage in the same role) and Taraji P. Henson (who should be cast in many more musicals). The choreography is really fun, and I like when a film musical leans into its theatricality like this.
But there was a strange glowiness of the tone which, considering the weight of the subject matter, felt oddly trite. Also, and I don’t know if this was a glitch at my particular screening, but the sound mixing was atrocious, the vocals were too quiet compared to the music, especially the percussion, and this score is built to showcase women belting! I felt robbed.
Let me start by saying, I’m glad this movie exists, and I think we should make more true comedies (and I loved the old-school touch of having bloopers in the credits). But, this was pretty not-for-me. Every member of the cast was charming and some moments made me laugh out loud. (Put Marshawn Lynch in more comedies! That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, but I stand by.) But, something about the tone missed me. (See above thoughts on “raunch.”) And the shole fight club angle meant there was more blood and punching than I care to see played for laughs. Wholly aware this is a me issue.
Ayo Edebiri should still be cast in anything she wants to be forever.
As I mentioned last week, the studios got in on the game this week with both the Golden Globes (which still suck I know, but too many people went back to paying attention to them and I don’t like feeling left out) and the Critics Choice nominations are now out. I’ve also started working through the Indie Spirit list, so we’ve got a bit of a mixed-budget post this week, which is fun.
Is this essentially a 2 hour long myth making exercise about a way for already rich people to sell shoes (and further invent/further the commodification of self that we all grapple with under post-Reagan late-capitalism)? Yes.
But, which I was watching it, mostly what I thought was, “this is so fun.” I love a talky movie that isn’t boring. I love Matt Damon (I know…I know OK, but like I can’t help it), especially when he’s paired up with Ben Affleck. My brain was very much formed taste wise in the 1997-2003 period, what can I say?
The soundtrack is great. The cast, especially Viola Davis is better than the story deserves. Don’t think about it too hard or you’ll get bummed out.
I was so nervous when I saw they were adapting this, because the book is (to my 10 year old mind anyway) pretty much perfect, but, thankfully, I needn’t have worried. This is achingly sweet without ever becoming saccharine. It takes the reality of being a 6th grade girl in all its awkward glory, seriously without ever talking down to its characters. Abby Ryder Fortson is a revelation in the titular role, and Benny Safdie* and Rachel McAdams are wonderful as her parents. Particularly McAdams, my memory of the mother’s story in the book is fuzzy, but I really appreciated the space it was given here. Also loved to see Kathy Bates in her Molly-Brown-comfort glory
This was made by Kelly Fremon Craig, who also wrote and directed Edge of Seventeen, which along with Eighth Grade and Lady Bird now compromise one of my favorite category of film – coming of age movies for girls that seem based in a recognizable reality. Highly recommend this addition to group.
*Every Benny Safdie acting performance I’ve seen has been so lovely and grounded and squaring it with his own films as a director is very hard for me.
Greta Gerwig is a genius, and every detail of this world is perfectly crafted and observed.
Are the politics perfect? No, but the actual point is that holding ourselves and each other to impossible standards is a prison, and a denial of our own humanity. And yes, it’s that deep.
Bubble gum perfection that moved me to tears both times I saw it in theaters. Iconic in all the good ways.
A very big part of the experience of watching this movie is just looking at Cillian Murphy‘s face, and I can think a lot of worse ways to spend 3 hours. Talky, but thrilling. Quiet, then so loud in scenes its oppressive,. This is a great biopic. It jumps timelines easily, and doesn’t shy away from the inherent darkness of the history it is grappling with.
The supporting actors are all fantastic. I’m overjoyed to see Josh Hartnett and David Krumholtz onscreen again! Robert Downey Jr. is so good, and the scenes with him and Alden Ehrenreich are pitch perfect. But this is Murphy’s movie and he’s wonderful and heartbreaking in it.
I didn’t quite get the way Florence Pugh‘s character was handled, but Emily Blunt was brittle and fantastic.
Even after waiting a bit to let my thoughts settle, it’s hard to know what to highlight about this 3.5 hours long epic, that while plenty violent manages to be more powerful in its stretches of silence. Particularly when the camera settles on Lily Gladstone‘s face.
I had read the book pretty soon before seeing this so I wasn’t expecting to be shocked by the plot, but I thought it was interesting that Martin Scorsese chose to let the audience know from the beginning which characters were responsible for the murders. It becomes less a true crime narrative and more a portrait of greed and evil and the lies people tell themselves to justify inexcusable actions. There are many scenes that made my skin crawl at the casual cruelty Leonardo DiCaprio‘s and Robert De Niro‘s characters were able to commit while telling the Osage members of their own family that they loved them. In the case of Leo’s Ernest, I think he might even believe it, because by the end (or maybe even at the beginning) he’s a husk of pathetic wishy-washyness rather than a mastermind. Because I think that’s ultimately part of Scorsese’s point, conspiracies and criminality do not require geniuses at the helm, they require opportunity, in this case afforded by the racism and violence at the heart of this country. It’s sickening.
But, it’s perfectly captured and I’m so grateful for Gladstone’s presence here as an anchor of quiet humanity.
*Some spoilers ahead*
Also, the ending, where the epilogue is given in the form of a radio play where white people shape the narrative, culminating in the moment of Marty himself stepping forward and implicating himself and this project in that history is an astoundingly powerful use of metanarrative and framing that I will remember for a long time.
As we were walking out of this biopic, my husband described it as “almost like reading a Wikipedia article” and I can’t think of a more apt description. It’s not a bad movie by any stretch, and if watching it helps introduce people to the truly inspiring example of Bayard Rustin (a civil rights organizer and peace activist left out of a lot of official narratives because he was gay and a former communist) then I think that’s great. But it feels a little preachy at times – some dialogue feels plucked from speeches and letters rather than how humans, even preachers, actually talk to each other.
All that being said – Colman Domingo is wonderful in the titular role, and I won’t be mad if he gets some awards attention for this performance. He strikes a wonderful balance between charisma and fragility.
Also – Wire Watch! Michael Potts aka Brother Muzone – shows up in a bow tie to bluster a bit (though he doesn’t shoot any one this time.)
Hmmm, where to start with Priscilla…? In many ways, it’s beautiful. The hair and makeup and costume design are all perfect. The dreamy, laconic vibe fits the statis its protagonist found herself trapped in basically from the moment Elvis decided to keep her. (The word “keep” chosen very specifically, it should make your skin crawl – she was a child!) But, I didn’t come away from it feeling as rapturous as I expected to. The power dynamic of the central relationship almost necessitated the centrality of Elvis to the narrative, but I was still kind of bummed that the most memorable part of this is Jacob Elordi‘s performance. (He’s great! But this is supposed to be her story!)
As someone on a quest to watch every documentary TV series about a cult (just finished “Love Has Won” if anyone wants to talk about the Robin Williams of it all) I felt prepped for this movie by “Shiny Happy People,” the recent Amazon Prime expose on the Duggars and their brand of Christian Fundamentalism (the IBLP).
A coming of age tale about a sheltered fundie girl (Eliza Scanlen) and the charming, older youth pastor (Lewis Pullman) who seduces her, there isn’t a ton of new narrative ground covered here. (Turns out it doesn’t really matter what the cultural idiom is, creepy older men are going to convince 17 year olds that they are “meant for each other.”) But the central performances from the always arresting Scanlen (who I hope will get to play an adult soon) and Pullman (so different from his character in last year’s Top Gun: Maverick, that I didn’t even recognize him until looking at IMDB after I finished the movie) are really great.
I know that if I had seen this as a teenager it would have had the same dark allure as something like White Oleander, which I watched countless times on HBO, but as an adult it just made me sad. I’m glad stories like this are being told, but the fact that it’s nothing new is a bummer.
A biopic of a famous artist more interested in the effects of fame than the art, Bradley Cooper makes a lot of Choices in this, they don’t all work for me, but overall I really liked it. His performance as Leonard Bernstein is layered, if a bit sweaty, but more impressively, Carey Mulligan slips into the “long suffering wife” role and infuses it with real life and pathos.
I’m most interested in this on a formal level, because I have a theory. Each section of this long-spanning story takes on the filmic language of the era being represented from the Black & White, quick-talking 40s meet-cute, complete with dream ballet (my favorite section), then a 60s Albee homage depiction of a claustrophobic marriage complete with biting insults, then a 70s gritty cocaine moment about “freedom” and it’s drawbacks, ending with a James L. Brooks women’s picture melodrama (where Mulligan really shines). The magic trick is that it all still feels like one movie.
Like I said, it’s not perfect and some supporting characters (particularly Gideon Glick‘s Tommy) could have been better fleshed out, but worth a watch for sure.
I feel like I’m about to get my film fan card revoked, but I think that I don’t really getTodd Haynes. There’s a lot to like here in his latest melodrama. (Sign me up for the Charles Melton fan club, though it is category error to call this a supporting performance.)n And a ton of really intriguing things to think about – the ethics of making art out of other peoples’ lives, the potential for narcissism in performance – but much like a lot of Haynes’s other films I’ve seen (I’m far from a completist) this left me ultimately cold.
There’s a great story at the heart of this (not the tabloid one, the story of the process of depiction of the tabloid one) but the filmmaking choices (that horror movie piano score!) all worked to distance me from that story in a way that I found, frankly, annoying. Fully admit that this is probably a me issue.
AHHHH! I know I’ve been pretty MIA from the blog for awhile. I don’t really know why I’ve taken an extended break from the Best Picture Baking Project. I do plan to return to it soon, but in the immediate term, it is awards season once again! The Indie Spirit nominations came out this week and with it this year’s Awards Season spreadsheet has been born. I already have a bunch to see, and the studios don’t get involved until next week’s Globe noms…but what a wonderful problem to have. Some lovely stuff in the indie crop though (including my favorite movie I’ve seen so far this year!)
Last year when I went to New York for work I saw a very Irish movie, and then went to Ireland and saw Tár, which happens everywhere, but felt very New York to me. This year, I managed to go to New York and see a very New York movies (at a breakfast screening with a smuggled in bodega sandwich, because what are business trips for except for indulging all your whims). And it was a lovely film, that we then went to again when it made it to St. Louis over the summer. I have not stopped cajoling everyone I meet to see it since.
A story about a woman (Greta Lee) whose past in Korea comes to visit her current, American life in the form of her childhood crush Jung Hae (Teo Yoo). It avoids cliche by having its best lines all come from her American husband, played by John Magaro, who I fell completely in love with and didn’t realized until after was the guy from First Cow (please give this man more paragons of gentle masculinity to play!) It doesn’t present any easy answers because the central question never truly becomes one of a traditional love triangle. A beautiful film about memory and adulthood (and New York).
Many moons ago, I was a 13 year old, first year student at the Foote Summer Theater program, going out one night after rehearsals of Steel Magnolias, with my friend Hanna to the York St. Cinema (RIP) in downtown New Haven to see CAMP. A movie about kids at a musical theater summer camp who take themselves absurdly seriously and grapple with being outsiders and the unique pressure and pleasure of being a straight boy in the the theater. It culminated in an extended dance number where a main character dresses in drag. I (of course) became completely obsessed with this film and made every one on my freshman hall at boarding school watch it a million times.
This summer, a bunch of cusper Gen Z/millennials who clearly grew up with similar obsessions to mine made their own version. This time it was called Theater Camp and much more focused on the counselor’s lives (though the kids are crazy talented). It hits many of the same beats as CAMP but has its own heart and with that won me over by the end.
I admit that before this the only Ira Sachs film I had seen was Love Is Strange so I don’t know which of these is an outlier in his oeuvre, but I missed the gentleness of that film. (Imagine casting the ball of warmth that is Ben Whishaw and still leaving me cold!) A portrait of sociopathy in a romantic context more than the sexy love triangle I was expecting. There’s an odd elision of plot and exposition that made it hard to even enjoy the messy-soapiness of the story.
Some bright spots:
A truly cool ending soundtracked by a jazz version of the Marseilles
Ben Whishaw’s cozy cottage and sweaters
Adèle Exarchopoulos, who I had never actually seen in anything and was fantastic. Give me a movie about her moving on from this while teaching her adorable students (or I guess just give me a different movie starring her please)
I went to boarding school, and my dad went to boarding school, and he raised my brother and I (partly) on the campus where we had been a student at in the 1960s (where, coincidentally Paul Giamatti also went). All of which is to say, I was extremely primed for this movie. I, of course, went with my Dad, on the day after Thanksgiving. It was a perfect movie for that occasion, and maybe a perfect holiday movie in general – if your holiday vibe leans to the melancholy. A period piece set in 1971, with pitch-perfect art direction and costume design and great performances from all involved, especially Giamatti as a very specific kind of boarding school guy who never really leaves, captured in his own melancholy glory. Da’Vine Joy Randolph was heartbreaking and hilarious. And Dominic Sessa is probably the best debut performance I’ve seen in a love time, even if the prominence of his Adam’s apple was a bit aggressive from the second row. Genuinely think I start watching this every Christmas season. It felt like a bristly, woolen New England hug.
I love that the Indie Spirit Awards for drawing my attention to movies that I wouldn’t normally think are “for me,” and this portrait of Blank Trans women sex workers certainly falls into that category. More explicit about sexuality than tends to be my cup of tea, I was captivated by the central subjects and they variety in their experiences and perspectives. I wish that director D. Smith had trusted the power of their stories more, rather than braiding in extraneous “illustrative” reenactment, and animations, and other visual ‘aides.’ I found this approach distracting, and thought that the cinematography of the interviews themselves was gorgeous and would have been compelling enough on its own.
A quick search of the word “Shakespeare” on this blog, shows me that I apparently get around to reading the next play on my list in July every two years or so. Maybe not the best strategy for ever getting to the end of the list, but, there are so many other books to read, and as much as I do truly love the language, the history plays really do nothing more than solidify for me that monarchy (the kind with real, war-making power) is never going to make sense.
I don’t want to claim William Shakespeare as any kind of proto-democrat (please see all of the bad, false-prophet following commoners in this play and elsewhere), but he also seems to have trouble making any kind of argument for what makes a good king other than, “won a war.” The central conflict of this play, that the titular John is clearly not the rightful descendant to the crown left vacant by his brother King Richard the Lionheart, could be quickly resolved if anyone was content to listen to the wishes of the young boy, aptly named Arthur, who it should belong to. He doesn’t want to be king, but unfortunately he has an ambitious mother and this is a Shakespearean history so – a woman is going to rant and rave her country into a war.
There are actually two ranting women in this one! And they both die off stage in an Act break and then are never mentioned again! Who would want to hear their reactions to the chaos they have wrought? There are Catholic priests to blame for things! And French princes to make look dumb!
OK, I’m being too harsh. In all honesty, I didn’t hate this, but I can see why it doesn’t get produced very often. King John isn’t remembered for much (in my American mind anyway) beyond the Magna Carta, which doesn’t get a mention here. And the most beautiful sections of the whole piece center around the violent death of a child. Not exactly great for a “pull up your picnic blankets in the park” summer production. Those scenes with Arthur really were heart wrenching though.
In the end, I come away with my usual reaction to the histories, which is the system of genetically inherited power obviously makes no sense, and with each generation it was/is given a new opportunity to prove this. But Shakespeare, a product of a time where saying something like that would be dangerous if not literally unthinkable, does an admirable job of crafting characters realistically grappling with trying to live in a nonsensical system. But at the end of the day, just let Arthur live in France with his “hysterical” mom, and give your lords some land rights, then maybe a monk won’t try to poison your dinner.
OK, I took an unexpectedly long awards season hiatus this year (honeymoon travel thrown in the mix certainly didn’t help), but…it was very cold and gray here this past Saturday, so… a 3 hour movie about men returning home from WWII it was!
Had I seen this one before?
No. I really thought I have, in high school maybe? But there were too many plot points and characters that were completely new to me, so I guess I had just read a lot about it and seen some clips.
Top 3 observations on this viewing?
This is full of pitch-perfect performances, Dana Andrews, Friedrich March, and Harold Russell (maybe the best non-actor acting performance ever?), are all turns heart-wrenching and heart warming in the three leads. But the various supporting players around them, particularly Myrna Loy in all her wry glory, all inhabit their characters so fully that even the ones you dislike feel real.
2. My only gripe is that it is a little too long, not on the scale of Best Pictures on the whole, but a few of the episodes hit the same beats. A minor quibble really though, I just think that the best scenes in this are so good that I wish they weren’t diluted by some of the filler.
3. For a 77 year old movie this remains so quotable! Loved Russel’s Homer messing with the Nazi apologist about his prosthetics:
Personal favorite line (from a very different scene – so many different tones handled so well in this movie!): “You see, we have a rather unusual relationship in our family. It may seem corny and mid-Victorian.”
It’s A Wonderful Life – One of the best movies ever made, I watch it on a big screen once a year and it never gets old
The Razor’s Edge – Never seen it, don’t have a ton of patience for Somerset Maugham
The Yearling – Love a weepy about a kid and an animal
This is tough, I completely get why the Academy went with Years and its a beautiful film, but I don’t think my heart will let me pick anything by It’s A Wonderful Life
Nope, but I want to stress again that the women, Loy and Theresa Wright especially, are all really wonderful. Their conversation about men are not empty exposition but genuine attempts to grapple with the gaps between the pre and post war realities. So, like, a technical fail, but not a spiritual one in my book.
Just two women in a family telling each other things!
OK, cake time! I made a Soldier’s Cake, which is a cake you can make with WWII rations, but because of that it is very dry, so I served with a heaping portion of whipped cream (I think it would be good with tea too!)
I Get a Bit Obsessive 
