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 it’s just my fan goggled blinding me, but I thought it was a really fun broadcast.
I went to the cinema St. Louis watch party again this year at the Hi-Pointe Theatre so I didn’t take as copious notes as I usually do (actually like to watch the Oscars so I’m not as good at blogging about them). But there were so many highlights (and a few things I have some notes on…) Though they aren’t maybe in my usual chronological order.
I complained when Jimmy Kimmel was announced as host again this year, and while I’m still ready for a new face up there (looking at you John Mulaney), I thought he did a pretty good job (though enough jokes about how long movies are), his monologue was fun, and I really loved the moment of union solidarity at the end:
We started the night off with a wonderful win from a deserving artist showing true emotion:
Also, so glad they brought back the past winners presenting the nominees! I wish there was a way to incorporate clips with this format, but I love these moments of connection to the legacy of the Academy.
I only saw one short this year (it was the Wes Anderson – glad he has an Oscar, wish he had been there, but given the Asteroid City snubs, I get it), but I really liked seeing Sean Oko Lennon shout out his mom, because I love her and our culture owes her a million “happy mother’s days” and also more than a few apologies:
The writing awards went to the coolest people:
And he’s right! Bring back midbudget movies!!
Then Oppenheimer (yay) and Poor Things (eye roll) won a lot of technical and craft awards (I would have given at least Production Design to Barbie come on!) But there were some moving and heavy speeches, from the director of 20 Days in Mariupol:
And Jonathan Glazer, who wrote and directed The Zone of Interest, which was far from my favorite film of the year, but I applaud his courage in talking about Gaza from the stage:
(If video isn’t loading, please click through to YouTube, the Oscars have – kind of suspiciously – not posted this on their official channel, so this is from the Deadline Hollywood account which makes embedding trickier).
Also, glad that Zone won, Best Sound, the use of background noise and score in that film completely transform the narrative and responsible for almost all of the creeping dread.
On a lighter, but still important note, I really loved the winners for Best Live Action short bringing along a student, who looked like a princess, and talking about arts education:
The presenter bits almost all worked! My favorites:
Batman villains:
John Cena saying the word “Costumes:”
Getting Steven Spielberg to play along:
John Mulaney, for some reason, recapping Field of Dreams:
Robert Downey Jr., gave great speech all season, and that included last night:
First SNL cast member to win an Oscar! Who do we think will be next? My husband’s bet is on Kate McKinnon, which I would love.
The best production number in recent Oscars memory happened, and somehow (no offense to Billie) didn’t win best song….
As you all probably know by now, I would have loved to see a Paul Giamatti win, but can’t be mad about Cillian:
Christopher Nolan won Best Director and gave one of the quotes of the night about our luck at being so near the birth of the art form of cinema, which was a beautiful sentiment:
Then, Emma Stone won Best Actress, she was, as she always is, very charming and humble in her acceptance, and I think she did a good job in Poor Things, but I think that this win not only fails to recognize Lily Gladstone’s astounding work at the center of Killers of the Flower Moon, misses the opportunity to make history for American Indigenous filmmakers, and continues the almost a century long trend of celebrating most acting as synonymous with best acting. That being said, I’m so excited to see what Gladstone does next, and hope that Emma as producer, has a hand in supporting that (which I think they will, they seem to have forged a lovely friendship. My issues with this win are not actually with her, but with the Academy.)
Then Al Pacino wandered onto the stage, and read the right winner, but seemed very confused, and managed to make the ending of the show feel very anti-climactic, but not enough to ruin anything in my estimation. (Oppenheimer, of course, won.)
Fashion wise, it was a sparkly, fluffy sleeved night, and I have a lot of favorite gowns. (Men mostly stuck to classic tuxes, that all looked lovely, but none spectacular enough to make the list.)
Sandra Hüller in Schiaparelli (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Justine Triet in Louis Vuitton (Photo Credit: Numero Netherlands)
Liza Koshy in Marchesa (Photo Credit: John Shearer/WireImage)
Amelia Dimoldenberg (Photo credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Gabrielle Union in Carolina Herrera (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
America Ferrera in Versace (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Greta Gerwig in Gucci (Photo Credit: Getty)
Anya Taylor Joy in Dior Haute Couture (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Greta Lee in Loewe (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Jennifer Lawrence in Dior Haute Couture (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Carey Mulligan in Balenciaga Couture (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Clara Wong with Paul Giamatti (Photo Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)
Sarah Thompson with John Battsek (Photo Credit: Getty)
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 caught up with before that show, and then some documentaries. I admit that I didn’t finish that category because they all looked so bleak and the two I did watch did not encourage me. I’m sure the rest are deserving films, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch them.
I saw a review of this that referred to it as a “romantic comedy,” and I guess it is a romance and the driest of comedies, but I tend to think “frothy” when I think rom-com, and any bubbles in this film are immediately burst. Not to say its dour, I laughed out loud multiple times! (Basically any time Janne Hyytiäinen was onscreen as the best friend). But it’s the deadest of pan and makes life in Helsinki look like a bleak place to live, with interjections of the war in Ukraine whenever anyone turns on a radio. Throw in some alcoholism and you can see why these characters think a Jarmusch zombie movie is an escape.
That all being said, its an oddly comforting kind of bleakness, and these is a cute dog. Plus, it’s less than 90 minutes long, so give it a shot!
I think this movie is really badly titled. It grabs your attention, sure, but it implies a raunchiness (my critical obsession of the year I guess) that is not at the center of this story. Also, the trailer I saw implied a tragedy that isn’t, so, I guess I didn’t appreciate the packaging of the story, but I did like the film!
It follows three British teen girls on the European version of a Spring Break type of bacchanalia. It manages to capture both what is liberating and terrifying about being young and choosing to let go of control (through the medium of astoundingly copious amounts of vodka). The bad things that happen are captured with empathy and subtlety, but what really got to me emotionally was the ways that the girls let the pressures of “desirability” and jealousy erode their friendship. (The writing of Skye (Lara Peake)’s undermining of Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) cut me deep.)
A cautionary tale that has the confidence to also show that this kind of mess can be genuinely fun, it both made me so grateful to not be that young anymore and a little wistful for the version of myself that had the energy to dance all night and be up for brunch.
Every year, as we get close to the end of the season, the movies i have left tend to feel like the bleakest & heaviest list. Partly, this is an “importance” bias in the documentary branch of the Academy, but it’s also a matter of my own motivation. Which is how I spent the afternoon of my President’s Day off curled up in a chair, holding my breath watching Bobi Wine, a Ugandan pop star turned activist-politician as he tried tom use democracy and non-violence to combat dictatorship in his country.
He is an inspiring figure, as his wife, Barbie Kyagulanyi, and I am glad that I learned their story. But this was a really heavy watch, particularly since last year around this time I went on a similar journey with Navalny and his death has been weighing on me.
Wine’s fight is worthy and inspiring and this film captures it well, but it is a lot.
If I have convinced you sometime over the last 8 years to watch Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and it didn’t work for you, then you can keep scrolling, because this movie has a very similar, quiet beauty and slyness that I just adored. But if you don’t get on its wavelength, it could feel pretty sleepy. Lead actress Anaita Wali Zada, in her debut role, carries the whole thing and I really hope she keeps acting because her face is so compelling.
Quiet, slow, but lovely.
(Also, if you’ve seen the trailer, just FYI Jeremy Allen White doesn’t actually show up until the end, but he’s great, of course, when he does.)
At the Indie Spirits, director Kaouther Ben Hania told Natalie Portman to see her movie, because people were saying it was a North African documentary May December. I can see what she mean, because while it is a documentary, it captures not the central events covered by the interactions between a group of actors hired to portray members of the family and the members of the family who are telling the story/playing themselves. This leads to meta-discussions of performance and sequences of an actress watching her subject eerily closely. But, what I found really notable about Four Daughters was the willingness of the central figure, Olfa Hamrouni, to be almost cruelly honest about the harsh and violent ways she treated her daughters (two of whom joined an Islamist terrorist community). The honesty is painful to watch and the actors allow the narrators a distance from their painful pasts that facilitates a level of reflection that is rare to achieve. Truly hard, but powerful watch.
At various points in this movie I found myself bringing my fingers to my mouth in a gesture of astonishment at how lovely it was. Not a lot happens, we just follow Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) as he goes about his days as a cleaner for for Tokyo’s public toilets, living his solitary, but not empty, life. Each day is the same, except for how they are different, in ways both small (which cassette he plays on his van’s tape deck, how crowded his preferred ramen bar is), and big (being dragged along on a doomed attempt at getting a date by his obnoxious but entertaining coworker Takashi (Tokio Emoto), the unexpected arrival of his teenage niece Niko (Arisa Nakano)). It never swerves into melodrama and remains sweet and humane without ever becoming saccharine.
I could write forever about this, just listing every detail that Wim Wenders captured perfectly, but instead, I’ll just tell you all to go see it. A wonderful way to end a really strong awards season/movie year. Come back Monday for an Oscars Round Up!
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 of anti-war activists who began playing a chant for Palestinian liberation over a loudspeaker outside of the show. For those of you who don’t know the Indie Spirits are held on a beach in a tent, so the chant was very much heard throughout the show. I’m conflicted about this, the message that protestors were promoting is a good one, and I see the power of disrupting a Hollywood event to bring more attention to the plight of people in Gaza. Fully on board. But I don’t know what the people in the tent were actually meant to do? They clearly weren’t going to just cancel the show, and although the flippant attempts at diffusing the situation with jokes didn’t work, I can see where the impulse behind them came from, and I have compassion for the team behind the show doing their best to keep it going. It feels ironic that the protestors were able to disrupt this show in particular where, though there are plenty of fancy Hollywood people, there are also a lot of struggling artists telling stories of the marginalized. Some of the winners did an admirable job of trying to address the incongruity, but it was a strange vibe.
Anyway, that being said, not that my opinion is worth anything, but I’m praying for a ceasefire and I hope my government will somehow find the bravery to change course towards peace.
It’s a weird pivot, but, let’s get back to the thing I’m much more equipped to comment on, frivolous discussion of film and pretty dresses.
Aidy Bryant was a fun host! Please more hosts that don’t hate awards shows!
I particularly loved the bit about being “bad at roasting” because I am bad a teasing (because I mostly think of it as being mean).
I continue to be glad that they are not segregating performing categories by gender, but think they should consider genre-segregation because 10 nominees and 1 winner feels wild to vote on!
That being said: Da’Vine! Has anyone ever swept this strongly through a season?
Nick Offerman started off with a giggle and then told homophobes to fuck off, which makes for a great acceptance speech:
Four Daughters is still on my too-watch list for the Oscars, but I pushed it up in priority because this director was wonderful:
Not ever going to watch The Last of Us, because even seeing pictures of those fungus monsters is enough to put my body into full convulsions, but this child was very cute in his little jacket-cape:
As a person who has sat through many an awful post-show Q&A at the IFC (best movie theater in America), I really appreciated this bit:
I think we should give Justine Triet an award each week so I can keep listening to her talk every day:
Samy Burch has a wonderful energy, and though I was ambivalent about May December, I hope that we find a way to make David Zaslav and Warner Brothers release the movie of her second screenplay, which they said they are going delete as a tax-write off, which fucking sucks and makes me so angry I want to cry. Anyway, she’s a delight:
Cord! I think, we might be giving him an Oscar in a couple of weeks! I’m not mad about it:
As you will hear, the protests began during the introduction for the Jury Duty‘s cast Best Ensemble Award, which was kind of a bummer, because they are really joyful and people didn’t yet know what was going on:
I just saw Fremont and it’s lovely and the director was the only one who reacted well in the moment to the protests:
Dominic Sessa won Best Breakthrough which is objectively and personally the right choice, but it also would have been hilarious for Marshawn Lynch to have an Indie Spirit Award:
I still need to see Showing Up, but the fact that Kelly Reichardt didn’t already have like 4 Robert Altman Awards feels wrong to me, so I’m glad we’ve rectified that:
Celine Song won best director!!!!!!!
Jeffrey Wright won best lead! And I am so excited that he got to have a moment on stage this season, because he is wonderful in American Fiction and his speech was lovely:
Past Lives win Best Feature! And, I will keep Indie Spirits on my list forever because it’s the kind of awards where Past Lives (my number one film of the year) can have it’s moment:
Fashion wise, this event is always weird, it’s in a tent on a beach, but it’s an awards show, it would be hard to style anyone for (and it is often hard to find designer info for looks…I do my best), but I did have a few favorites. I tend to like stranger looks for this one than the galas because if you can’t take a risk on Santa Monica Pier when can you?
Anne Hathaway in Valentino (Photo Credit: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage)
Rachel Sennot in her best Maureen from Rent designed by Balenciaga (Photo Credit: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage)
Samy Burch with Alex Mechanik (Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
Anna Kendrick (Photo Credit: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage)
Ali Wong (Photo Credit: Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock)
Michelle Williams in Chanel (Photo Credit: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage/Getty)
A. V. Rockwell in Elie Saab (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Jessica Chastain in Oscar de la Renta (Photo Credit: Kayla Oaddams/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.
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)
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.
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.
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!)
We made to the end of another awards season! Though the awards didn’t all go to my personal picks, it felt like a joyous night, and I’m very glad we aren’t being forced to all have a long weird discussion about whether or not it’s OK to slap someone at a work event. I even thought Jimmy Kimmel did a good job (though I got a little bored with how often he talked about how long the show was – the Oscars are once a year LET THEM BE LONG).
Also, where was Tom Cruise? He went to the nominee luncheon? I’m sure Jimmy wouldn’t have made an L. Ron Hubbard joke to his face? He and Nicole have both been there post-divorce…I don’t get it! But whatever, on to people who were there!
I don’t know why we started with Animated Feature, but love to watch Guillermo del Toro win Oscars, after his speech Tim turned to me and said, “Has he ever put a foot wrong?” and I think the answer is no:
Ke Huy Quan is a joy bomb, and I am very happy for him (though he was the male lead of his film and this is category error):
Jamie Lee Curtis deserves a victory lap, and though I do not think her part in this film was the most impressive in the category, the way people are acting like she tore that statue out of Angela Bassett’s hands is ridiculous. (Angela should have an Oscar of course, but Wakanda Forever is just fine…lets give her a true star vehicle!!). Jamie’s “Shut up” was pretty classic:
Navalny wasn’t my top documentary of the year, but I’m glad to see his family get their moment on this stage:
Cutest moment of the night goes to the Short Feature winners:
Then All Quiet on the Western Front won a bunch of things (including Score, which is insane because the music in that movie is as artful as a steam roller and their composer then talked slowly and for too long, and I started to think they were going to pull off some sort of upset). There was a good bit during the technical awards involving the bear from Cocaine Bear, and it was exactly the kind of timely joke that is going to be impossible to explain in 10 years and things like that are a big part of why I love the Oscars:
Please ignore the Twitter part at the end of this video – they are dumb people who don’t like enjoying things, Malala tweeted a Harry lyric later in the night, she is a person not a saint, everyone calm down.
Really loved having all the songs performed again! My personal favorite of the night was Gaga’s stripped down belting:
But, I am glad the award ultimately went to “Natu, Natu” because I love a production number:
And we got a Carpenters interpolation acceptance speech which I didn’t know I needed:
Ruth Carter is a legend (and the first black woman to win two Oscars!):
Look, I did not have the effusive reaction to Everything Everywhere All At Once, that seemed nearly universal otherwise, but The Daniels seem like really lovely, thoughtful guys, and I liked their speech for Original Screenplay (though that should be Martin McDonagh’s Oscar, and I just don’t think sweeps like this for any film are my favorite thing, I prefer the love to shared around a bit):
But more importantly than anything: SARAH POLLEY HAS AN OSCAR SARAH POLLEY HAS AN OSCAR ACADEMY AWARD WINNER SARAH POLLEY:
The Daniels director speech was also nice:
It makes sense that they went to Emerson.
I know that The Whale is *problematic* but I love love love Brendan Fraser and I want tot give him a hug (and more and better work):
Cate Blanchett gave the best performance by an Actress this year, but she has two Oscars and is Cate Blanchett, I do think it was an important moment for the Academy to give this award to Michelle Yeoh, and she knew the moment and rose to it and I love her:
I don’t want to harp on not liking something everyone loved, but it is a weird experience! I’m sure I’m missing the point of EEAAO, but now I’ll have a chance to reevaluate it when I get to it in the Best Picture Baking Project! (Returning soon!) But I did love watching this group of artists have so much fun all season (and I will love seeing them be there to present next year!)
Also, very fun to have Harrison Ford there to hug Ke Huy Quan!
I have such a long list of fun fashion! There was a lot of gauzy white (lace!) and sparkly black (sequins!) with the occasional pop of beautiful color. Bare with the long post, it’s the Oscars!
Michelle Yeoh in Dior Haute Couture (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Ana de Armas in Louis Vuitton (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Kerry Condon in Versace (Photo Credit: Getty Images/Daily Mail)
Stephanie Hsu in Valentino (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Kate Hudson in Rodarte (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
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I Get a Bit Obsessive 