Oscar Nominations 2023: 7 of 9

We are scraping the bottom of the barrel, nomination-wise, with these five films. These are traditionally the categories that include the worst films, but we will start with a movie that I think everyone liked:

G Minus One (ゴジラ-1.0)

1 nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Yamazaki Takashi

Cast: Kamiki Ryūnosuke, Hamabe Minami, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Andō Sakura, Sasaki Kuranosuke, Yamada Yūki, Aoki Munetaka

This was pretty good. Godzilla looks really amazing in this—he’s a kind of perfect throwback to 1950s Gojira without looking too cheesy—and the script explicitly links the fight against G to Japanese national performance and postwar economics. I found the non-action sequences a little long though, and they telegraphed too much about the final showdown to the audience ahead of time, so it didn’t have the surprise it should have. But, look, I love Godzilla/Gojira (I love monster movies in general), so I enjoyed all of the time I got to spend with the big guy. It's just that Kamiki Ryūnosuke sure did spend a lot of time crying in this. So many tears!

Will win: N/A

Could win: Visual Effects

My rating: #38 out of 81

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

1 nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Maria Bakalova, Elizabeth Debicki, Sylvester Stallone

I liked the plot of this. It’s smart for a while. But the third act really drags, and at one point I was like oh god there’s still another hour?? I’m into the film’s approach to animals, but at one point the whole thing just becomes too preposterous. And also I didn’t know who a good thirty percent of the characters were. There’s a dog that speaks English? A whistling dude? And they fly a kind of planet-ship with its own ecosystem and gravity? Who lives on this ship with them and why? I don’t know. The stakes of this were lost on me. I get that these Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are made for people who understand the lore a lot better than I do and who, I presume, have seen the other films more recently than I have (the last one came out literally 6 years ago—I’m supposed to remember it?), but I do wish this studio would make its films more accessible to people who aren’t steeped in their lore. But I do love Bradley Cooper. I love him in everything, and I love him in this.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #66 out of 81

Golda

1 nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Guy Nattiv

Cast: Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin, Liev Schreiber, Lior Ashkenazi, Rami Heuberger, Rotem Keinan, Dvir Benedek, Ellie Piercy, Henry Goodman, Ed Stoppard, Dominic Mafham, Ohad Knoller

Nope. Honestly, after Guy Nattiv won an Oscar for his horrible live-action short film Skin, I don't know why anyone would give him money to make a movie. Well, they didn't give him much—Golda was definitely made on the cheap—but still. This movie is awful. In many ways, this is basically the same movie as Rustin. It’s a kind of live-action Wikipedia entry with questionable filmmaking, a terrible screenplay, and famous actors in the roles of recognizable historical figures. Golda just has ultra conservative politics instead of Rustin’s vaguely left-of-center politics. What's almost totally insane about the movie is that it has no connection to soldiers or battles. This is a movie about a war that has no soldiers even as characters; instead, Nattiv gives us the battle sequences with blurry animated footage that is actually impossible to follow. At one point, we watch a battle in a windowless control room, and the score is completely gloom and doom, and we stare at Golda Meier, and she looks miserable, and I thought for sure that things were going very poorly for the Israeli military, but then everyone starts cheering and celebrating. Apparently I was supposed to understand the weird animated footage I had been watching to be a positive thing. It's a mess. There's no reason to watch this movie.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #81 out of 81

American Symphony

1 nomination

• Original Song – "It Never Went Away": Jon Batiste (Soul) & Dan Wilson 

Director: Matthew Heineman

This was not interesting. I think maybe it’s because the film really doesn’t give us access to Jon Batiste, the man at the movie's center at all. In many ways it’s a very cold look at Jon Batiste. Like, obviously the filmmaker loves him, but he doesn’t seem interested in getting any deeper into what makes him tick or what moves him and mostly just stays at the level of oh wow this man is very cool. I mostly feel like not very much happened in this movie, if I’m honest. I mean, sure, there were events, but they are transmitted to us more like news than a personal journey. Jon Batiste gets married, his wife has cancer, and the two of them cope with that together—and also frequently apart. He also works on composing his symphony, although we really don't see any of this process and don't know anything about the music or how he figures out what the music sounds like. I really just don't know anything about this guy after this movie. It feels really odd.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Original Song

My rating: Unranked

Flamin' Hot

1 nomination

• Original Song – "The Fire Inside": Diane Warren (Tell It like a Woman, Four Good Days, The Life Ahead, Breakthrough, RBG, Marshall, The Hunting Ground, Beyond the Lights, Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)

Director: Eva Longoria

Cast: Jesse Garcia, Annie Gonzalez, Emilio Rivera, Vanessa Martinez, Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shalhoub, Pepe Serna

This is a movie about a guy who came up with a brand so he could sell more chips. The brand succeeded, and so did he. We are in a very strange moment of capitalism in which viewers are expected to root for a brand. The issue with this movie, though, is simply that not one thing in it feels authentic. The acting is terrible, and the whole thing just feels completely fake. Flamin' Hot occasionally leans into its mythmaking silliness, but not enough. It believes its own story way too much to work. I did like the part where Montañez tells his father off; movies always want to tell us that family is the most important thing, so I appreciated that. I also thought that Montañez's little boy was super cute. We needed more of him. But mostly Eva Longoria's film is a flamin' hot mess. Of course, that doesn't much matter when Diane Warren has written a song for your movie. You're gonna get nominated anyway! Warren has been nominated nine out of the last ten years for the Original Song Oscar, and Flamin' Hot marks her fifteenth nomination. She has never won, and I'm beginning to suspect she never will. The music branch just nominates her every year. I expect to be writing the same thing next year. The reason she's never won, though, is that if you look at the movies she's been nominated for in the last ten years you also won't find anything good. The movies themselves are bad, and she has to know it. I find the Diane Warren nomination to be a very strange annual tradition.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #78 out of 81

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

3. Napoleon, Past Lives, Nyad, Society of the Snow

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, The Creator, Rustin, May December

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

6. Animated Features

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

Oscar Nominations 2023: 6 of 9 (Animated Features)

For some reason, each of the animated feature films only received one nomination. Usually one or two get an Original Score nomination or an Original Song nomination, and sometimes screenplay nominations or even Best Picture, but not this year. The other key thing about 2023 – and every year – is that you can generally expect the movies to be split between the studios. This is why there's almost always a random Netflix nominee you've never heard of, one nominee from Japan, and another nominee from Europe in addition to the big studio usual suspects from Disney–Pixar and Dreamworks. I assume this is because the Animation branch votes in blocs. Anyway, here are this year's five nominees.

Spider-man: across the Spider-verse

1 nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson

Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jason Schwartzman, Oscar Isaac, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jake Johnson, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Shea Whigham, Greta Lee, Amandla Stenberg, Jharrel Jerome, Andy Samberg, Jack Quaid, Rachel Dratch, Ziggy Marley, Jorma Taccone, Daniel Kaluuya, Mahershala Ali, J.K. Simmons, Donald Glover, Elizabeth Perkins, Kathryn Hahn, Ayo Edebiri, Nicole Delaney, Antonina Lentini, Atsuko Okatsuka, Peter Sohn

This is very very cool for all of its running time. It's unexpected and interesting, and it has more surprises up its sleeve than you can basically ever imagine. The animation for this film – as with the original – is inventive and almost shocking. It places different styles next to one another in such a brilliant way that it makes the totally incongruous seem natural. In many ways this is just a genius piece of moviemaking and more-than-worthy sequel to the first film, Into the Spider-verse. But... and this is a very large but... the ending drove me nuts. I went with a friend, and when it was over we looked at one another and said "shame about the ending". The filmmakers opt for a cliffhanger, but it feels inept, and because I wasn't expecting a cliffhanger, I was very disappointed by this choice. Still, this is a good movie, and I would say it's the favorite to win the Oscar (though it is not what I'm going to predict). Also, I have a question: when all of the spideys are in the world with all of the spideys instead of in their home-worlds, who's guarding the home worlds? They're just all hanging out in a different dimension and leaving their worlds to go to hell? I wouldn't mind this idea so much except that this Spider-man series sees the world as intensely dark and filled with peril. To take this series at its word, the world is on the absolute brink of ruin and evil. Anyway, it's something I've been wondering.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Animated Feature

My rating: #34 out of 78

The Boy and the Heron

(君たちはどう生きるか)

1 nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Cast: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Keiko Takeshita, Jun Fubuki, Sawako Agawa, Karen Takizawa

I really, really liked this and it's the highest ranking of the animated features for me this year. It's surreal and imaginative and beautiful and striking and magical. This is also an extraordinarily adorable take on the multiverse and the ways that grief fragments the experiences of our lives. I say adorable because this vision of the multiverse (and we had a few this year with Past Lives, The Boy and the Heron, Spider-man, and Robot Dreams) thinks about the different ways that loss affects us, and the different ways that those we love and lose can live on within us or around us. This is a film about family and legacies, but it's also about how we process the loss of a loved one. And it does that in typical, surreal, Miyazaki fashion, with goose-stepping parakeets and shattering castles and souls reborn. This is wonderful.

Will win: Animated Feature

Could win: N/A

My rating: #13 out of 78

Elemental

1 nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Peter Sohn

Cast: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara, Mason Wertheimer

This is cute. It’s completely predictable in every imaginable way, but it’s kind of irresistible anyway. This is, first and foremost, a story of immigrants and growing up with immigrant parents, and although it would seem to indicate some kind of specific allegory for the immigrant experience of one group, it's trying to do something more inclusive and, perhaps (I'm not quite sure) more interesting. It's intensely clever in its world building, and I liked much of it, especially the world itself. It definitely has its problems, though. For one thing, the main character, "Ember", spends most of the film as an anxious ball of fire (if you will), and she's uptight and kind of annoying. The young water-man who loves her, "Wade", is perfect and understanding and does all of the right things. This makes for a movie that is off-kilter. She is hard to like and he is easy to like. I think it's just a kind of basic androcentric position that filmmakers often take. I think my other problem with movies like this (predictable romantic comedies, I mean... or maybe I mean animated movies that are aimed at young people) is that “doing the right thing” is so obvious. The audience knows what the right thing to do is way before the characters figure it out. This makes us feel good as viewers, of course – we are so much wiser than these fools/kids on the screen – but I find it very boring. And nothing like real life. And more often than not, parents are not quite as open to change as these narratives would like to imagine. But, hey, this is a fable about fire-people and water-people, so we can live in the fantasy.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #60 out of 78

Robot Dreams

1 nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Pablo Berger

Cast: Ivan Labanda, Tito Trifol, Rafa Calvo, José García Tos, José Luis Mediavilla, Graciela Molina, Esther Solans

This is much better than the cuteness of Elemental. Pablo Berger's film is a very cute story about coping with loneliness and meeting a friend instead. Or perhaps it's about falling in love instead of friendship. Actually, yes; it's about falling in love. There are several wonderful things about this. First, it's done as a film without dialogue; there's sound, of course, so it isn't a silent movie, but the whole thing is done without anyone talking. Second, this movie is called Robot Dreams, and it is quite literally that. It lives in the multi-verse world that so many of this year's films live in, where we are inside the dreams of a robot for some of the film's running time. These dreams are sweet and sad and sometimes wonderful. The whole thing is inventive and delightful, and then it takes a turn in the third act. This turn is nothing short of extraordinary, and because I wasn't expecting it, I still feel surprised by the wistful regret and wisdom that Robot Dreams offers its audience. It's a really lovely movie. Now, let's talk about release dates. I do not understand why a distributor would release a movie for a single week in theatres in December so that it can qualify for the Oscars and then not release the film in wider release during the six weeks it's nominated. Literally Robot Dreams will never be as popular as it is right this second, and yet Neon is planning to release the movie in May or June well after either The Boy and the Heron or Spider-man: across the Spider-verse will already have taken home the Animated Feature Oscar. Why? What is the logic here? It makes absolutely no sense to me. So, anyway, this is impossible to see on either a big screen or a streaming service right now, and actually it makes me kind of mad. (Mind you, I'm annoyed with the distributors of Io Capitano and Perfect Days, too; Cohen Media is doing this in addition to Neon.) And I really don't like bootlegging things – they actually deserve my money – but I got frustrated and found the movie here.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #49 out of 78

Nimona

1 nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy, Lorraine Toussaint, Beck Bennett, RuPaul, Indya Moore, Julio Torres

Oh dear. I wrote my thoughts on this already here. This is very gay, and I'm glad it's very gay, but it's also predictable and boring and has some "very important" lessons it's interested in teaching us. No thanks. As much as I like gay things, I would like them to be better than this.  I will say that I love Riz Ahmed and I love this very gay cast (except Chloë Grace Moretz; I haven't forgiven her for this really offensive act of outing she pulled in 2018), but Nimona is not a good movie. My friend Caleb says that the original graphic novel is very good, and he even mailed me a copy, so I'm gonna read that and hope it's better than this nonsense. I recommend that you do that too.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #76 out of 78

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

3. Napoleon, Past Lives, Nyad, Society of the Snow

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, The Creator, Rustin, May December

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

Silence Is a Falling Body (2017)

I wish Silence Is a Falling Body were better. It’s a home-video movie about the filmmaker’s father and his life as a gay man before he married the filmmaker's mother, but the director doesn’t have quite enough footage to fill out her exploration of her father’s life. To make matters more complex, she avoids two pieces of the narrative puzzle that would have made the film more intriguing and compelling: she doesn’t interview her mother and she doesn’t analyze her own gaze at all critically. What does she want to find looking at these images, sifting through these stories? Comedi never actually asks that question in the film. And that’s a let-down.

Oscar Nominations 2023: 5 of 9

The rest of the movies that got Oscar nominations all got only one nomination. Some of these will be hidden gems (usually the International Feature nominees), and some of these will be completely abominable (usually the Original Song and Makeup & Hairstyling nominees), but I still watch them all. This post only has three films because the next post will have five:

The Color Purple

1 nomination

• Supporting Actress: Danielle Brooks

Director: Blitz Bazawule

Cast: Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, Halle Bailey, Ciara, H.E.R., David Alan Grier, Deon Cole, Jon Batiste, Louis Gossett Jr.

I very nearly hated this. An entire fifth of my second book is about the novel–movie–musical adaptations of The Color Purple, so I had high hopes for what this movie could have been. It's nearly a complete failure, I think. You can read my objections to the new movie's complete removal of the musical's spiritual themes here, but my real objection is that this new movie is not a film adaptation of the stage musical. It is a musical adaptation of the 1985 movie. And that is just a bad choice all around. Now, listen, Danielle Brooks is obviously a highlight of this new movie that no one needed. She gets nominated for the role Oprah Winfrey was nominated for in 1986. It's hard to be mad at Brooks getting praised; who doesn't love Danielle Brooks? (She played the same role on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony there.) But this isn't winning anything, and it's the biggest missed opportunity of a film this year.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #69 out of 75

El Conde

1 nomination

• Cinematography: Edward Lachman (Carol, Far from Heaven)

Director: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Stella Gonet, Catalina Guerra, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Diego Muñoz, Clemente Rodríguez, Rosario Zamora

Pablo Larraín reimagines the Chilean dictator and war criminal Augusto Pinochet as a centuries-old vampire who faked his death in 2006 but is living on, feeding on the hearts of Chileans whenever he needs a boost. This is completely outrageous. "El Conde" is "The Count", which, apparently, Pinochet called himself, but it is also, of course, Dracula. El Conde is disgusting, satirical fun. I’ve never seen a world leader skewered in quite this way. This is a brazen, shocking comedy that loathes its central figure, but the film manages to enjoy itself, and consequently we do too, as it describes Pinochet’s many, many crimes against humanity. It's gorgeously shot by Todd Haynes' usual cinematographer (Lachman did not do May December). I am not sure how I feel about Larraín, though, honestly. I'm not sure what he's doing. I don't understand these projects of his. Spencer, Jackie, El Club, El Conde: What's going on?

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #33 out of 75

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

1 nomination

• Original Score: John Williams (The Fabelmans, Star Wars: Episode IX – the Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: Episode VIII – the Last Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII – the Force Awakens, The Book Thief, Lincoln, War Horse, The Adventures of Tintin, Munich, Memoirs of a Geisha, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Catch Me If You Can, Artificial Intelligence: A.I., Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Patriot, Angela's Ashes, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Sleepers, Nixon, Sabrina, Schindler's List, JFK, Home Alone, Born on the Fourth of July, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Accidental Tourist, Empire of the Sun, The Witches of Eastwick, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The River, Return of the Jedi, E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, The Towering Inferno, Tom Sawyer, Cinderella Liberty, Images, The Poseidon Adventure, Fiddler on the Roof, The Reivers, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Valley of the Dolls)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Harrison Ford,  Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Olivier Richters, Ethann Isidore, Toby Jones, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Martin McDougall, Alaa Safi

Why did they even bother with this trash? I mean, I guess I hope Jez Butterworth and Mads Mikkelsen got paid well? This was so fucking stupid. And also I want to say that I do not enjoy this colonial trope where our “heroes” descend on some non-American city like Syracuse or Tangiers and then wreck a whole bunch of shit and steal people’s motorbikes so that they can chase bad guys. This is basically a staple of the James Bond movies and the Mission: Impossible movies, but I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to stop thinking about the random newly married couple whose car just got stolen before their honeymoon while Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Harrison Ford drive off in their honeymoon vehicle. Like, I know I’m supposed to be focusing on whatever McGuffin the script has provided, but that is not where my brain goes. This was nominated because the Music Branch is corrupt and ridiculous and they nominate John Williams every single year he has a score out. Mind you, three of the four previous Indiana Jones movies were also nominated for best "original" score, and they have found a way to nominate him for the most recent three Star Wars films as well. It's just so ridiculous when they could have finally given Joe Hisaishi a nomination for The Boy and the Heron or honored Michael Giacchino's gorgeous work on Society of the Snow. But no; the Music Branch is over here nominating John Williams for his fifty-fourth Oscar for a terrible fifth movie in a tired franchise. What a snooze.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #67 out of 75

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

3. Napoleon, Past Lives, Nyad, Society of the Snow

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, The Creator, Rustin, May December

6. Animated Features

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

Oscar Nominations 2023: 4 of 9

The next four movies on our list:

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

2 nominations

• Sound
• Visual Effects

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Cary Elwes

It seems crazy to say this, but these two nominations – for the seventh movie in the series – are this franchise's first ever nominations. In any case, Dead Reckoning was fun. It's also complete nonsense. As I left the theatre I asked myself: did a bot write this? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised. McQuarrie's film was very very silly, but it's not without its charms. There is, however, a paradox in PG-13 films like this one. They purportedly shield young people (under 13) from seeing too much violence. At the same time, their plots are about saving the entire world from succumbing to violent destruction. And yet, they irresponsibly show the most brutal, horrible physical violence as if it has no consequences at all. You can get your face slammed into a stone wall and come right back to fight some more, and you can get your hand stabbed into a table and not bleed a drop. So while PG-13 films such as this (and the ones cranked out by Marvel Studios) purport to be opposed to violence, they make the world more and more violent by pretending that terrible violence does no harm.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Visual Effects

My rating: #50 out of 73

The Creator (創造者)

2 nominations

• Sound
• Visual Effects

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, Amar Chadha-Patel, Marc Menchaca, Robbie Tann, Ralph Ineson, Michael Esper

I was into this! The Creator is a smart movie about AI. It's the complete tonal opposite of Kogonada's After Yang, but it has a similar heart to that movie (which, if you haven't seen... what are you doing?). The acting in The Creator is very, very good, and I liked its politics. For me, too, the film is smart enough that it invites me to think about the stories we tell ourselves to justify the genocidal violence we commit or allow our governments to commit in our name. Many of us are probably thinking about genocide right now, and this is a film about the ways governments (and we ourselves) make sense of those atrocities. My favorite performance in The Creator was Amar Chadha Patel's. He's a really excellent actor, and he does amazing work with his two parts. But the best thing about the movie – and the Academy noticed this, clearly, is the insanely cool light-scanning murder device with which the film begins. It's just an insanely cool idea that's executed beautifully by The Creator's visual effects team.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #27 out of 73

Rustin

1 nomination

• Actor: Colman Domingo

Director: George C. Wolfe

Cast: Domingo, Gus Halper, Johnny Ramey, Aml Ameen, Lilli Kay, CCH Pounder, Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Audra McDonald, Jeffrey Wright

This movie is so bad. I've already written about it a little bit here, but it's really the script that is just so embarrassing. This movie has the kind of energy that expects that no one has heard about Bayard Rustin before and that this is some kind of hidden gem of a story, and so it gives us a kind of shallow, hagiographic presentation of this man who was, in fact, very important to the history of our country. I know why movies like this need to get made, I guess, but I really don't understand why they can't be better movies. This is almost unwatchable. There's no reason that a movie about Bayard Rustin needs to be a cartoon. Rustin is, however, filled with a who's who of Black American movie actors, and the cameos are somewhat fun. I am singling out the terrible script because I continue to find Dustin Lance Black's treatment of homosexuality onscreen to be truly offensive. I understand that he has an LGBT-rights framework for his thinking about queerness, and so we will always get these stories about queerness as it contends with the law. But he does this thing where he frames homosexuality as "true love" and some kind of magical, wonderful thing in the middle of a horrible world, and this frame always makes homosexuality into a kind of guilty pleasure that is indulged in by his film's protagonists. They're always partially (or mostly) ashamed of their homosexual desires, and Black frames that as an internal struggle with containing pleasure and desire – rather than as a restriction placed on pleasure and desire from outside. It's very frustrating to me. So, predictably, in Rustin homosexuality will ruin your life, and it's insidious and makes you make bad decisions. It should be protected by the law, of course, because love is love is love, but queer desire will fuck you up. It's just so gross. This is not what I want from gay history. One more thing on Colman Domingo, though. I love him. I am happy for him. I'm glad everyone is going to know who he is now, and I'm glad he's going to get more work.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #68 out of 73

May December

1 nomination

• Original Screenplay: Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik

Director: Todd Haynes

Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Charles Melton, Chris Tenzis, Andrea Frankle, Gabriel Chung, Mikenzie Taylor, Elizabeth Yu, Piper Curda, Cory Michael Smith, D.W. Moffett, Kelvin Han Yee

This movie is sooooo good. I've already praised its use of the melodramatic form and its brilliant skewering of Hollywood actors, so I'll leave that behind, and I'll spend this space praising the Writers Branch. The screenplay nominations this year are completely spot on. Original Screenplay as a category, especially, honors five excellent scripts, with not a miss on the list. I think the Adapted Screenplay list is a little less strong (Poor Things was included, after all), but even that left off Killers of the Flower Moon in favor of Cord Jefferson's American Fiction script. Great call. But the Original list? Amazing. This is where the Academy shines the brightest, I think. The Writers Branch seems to me the most discerningly intelligent of the branches, and I appreciate them. (Except for their weird rule on what's adapted and what's original. The idea that Barbie is somehow an adapted screenplay is insane.) Anyway, May December is campy and smart and troubling and excellent. I love how the film shifts its perspectives in intriguing ways, and I adored, especially, the scene with Melton and Portman near the end where she says "that's what grownups do". Great stuff. So smart. And honestly this movie should have gotten way more Oscar nominations than this little one. I don't understand what people missed here. I guess Todd Haynes's sensibilities just are not for everyone...

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #19 out of 73

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

3. Napoleon, Past Lives, Nyad, Society of the Snow

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

6. Animated Features

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

Oscar Nominations 2023: 3 of 9

We're jumping to a slightly lower tier with the next four movies:

Napoleon

3 nominations

• Production Design: Arthur Max (The Martian, American Gangster, Gladiator) & Elli Griff
• Costume Design: Janty Yates (Gladiator) & Dave Crossman 
• Visual Effects

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Rupert Everett, Tahar Rahim, Edouard Philipponnat, Mark Bonnar, Paul Rhys, Riana Duce, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sagnier, John Hollingworth, Youssef Kerkour, Miles Jupp, Scott Handy 

The best thing about this movie was its visual effects, so I'm glad it got honored there. I've written about this movie already and what I thought about its interminable running time, its real lack of adventure, and its deep pettiness toward the emperor at its center. I was not surprised to see it appear in the production design and costume categories. Both are excellent achievements, but I do wonder why this branch bothered with this movie. There are actually more interesting costumes and production designs in other places. Also, it's hilarious to me that the Academy split the Art Directors branch so that the Costume Designers had their own branch (this happened in 2013), and yet here both branches are nominating the same 5 films in their respective categories. Boring. Also Napoleon won't be winning anything. And I am very sorry that this movie is not better.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #63 out of 72

Past Lives

2 nominations

• Picture
• Original Screenplay: Celine Song

Director: Song

Cast: Greta Lee, Yoo Teo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Yim Seung-min, Yoon Ji-hye, Choi Won-young, Ahn Min-young

This is one of the most original films to come out this year, and it is probably also one of the most critically acclaimed films this year. It deserves all of its accolades. This movie is a real exploration of the multiverse. Our past lives or other lives really do exist, they live on in our memories, and they pop up suddenly with the arrival of a former lover or a memory of something that might have been. Celine Song's movie explores the singular heartbreak of meeting someone with whom one could have had a whole entire life except that your choices have taken you in different directions. If you haven't seen this film, you should. I am very glad it managed a Best Picture nomination. It deserves it, despite it being what seems like a "small" movie next to something enormous like Napoleon or Oppenheimer.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Original Screenplay

My rating: #4 out of 72

Nyad

2 nominations

• Actress: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right, Being Julia, American Beauty, The Grifters)
• Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster (Nell, The Silence of the Lambs, The Accused, Taxi Driver)

Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Cast: Bening, Foster, Rhys Ifans, Eric T. Miller, Anna Harriette Pittman, Nadia Lorencz, Karly Rothenberg, Luke Cosgrove, Marcus Young, Ethan Jones Romero, Jeena Yi

This is much better than it should be. I was very surprised to like this as much as I did. But this is, in the first place, quite a fun time, and in the second place, pretty damn inspirational. I am actually surprised that Annette Bening got a nomination here. I know she was nominated in all precursor awards shows, but I thought for sure she'd be a sort of also-ran in the category. She's s solid in this, but she does spend most of her time in the water being pummeled by exhaustion and jellyfish, so we spend most of our identificatory energy on Jodie Foster, who I adored in this movie. The real standout of Nyad is the return of Jodie Foster! And it heralds her new appearance on TV in True Detective. She's back, baby, and she's so good. (But this isn't going to win any Oscars.)

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #30 out of 72

La Sociedad de la Nieve (Society of the Snow)

2 nominations

• International Feature: Spain (Pain & Glory, The Sea Inside, All about My Mother, The Grandfather, Secrets of the Heart, The Age of Beauty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Course Completed, Double Feature, Carmen, Begin the Beguine, The Nest, Mama Turns 100, That Obscure Object of Desire, My Dearest 'Señorita', Tristana, Bewitched Love, Los Tarantos, Placido, La Venganza)
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Cast: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Diego Vegezzi, Fernando Contingiani, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Valentino Alonso, Tomas Wolf

This movie is so good! Do not be deterred by its long running time and its troubling subject matter. It's wonderfully shot and beautifully acted, and it packs a powerful emotional punch. This is on Netflix, so unfortunately most of us won't be able to see it on a big screen, but if you can, you should. The plane crash in the film's first act is one of the best I've ever seen put in a movie. It's edited impeccably, and one has a sense of every single thing that's happening. Then the movie shifts into an almost completely different mode as we suffer with the passengers the long wait in the mountains with the hope that someone will come rescue them. Somehow Bayona is able to manage the shift from intense action to contemplative, philosophical film. It's quite a feat, and Society of the Snow is really not to be missed. Enzo Vogrincic is extraordinary in this, and the entire company is amazing. Honestly, I'm surprised this wasn't nominated for more awards. Right off the bat, I can say that I really wish the Music Branch would stop hating Michael Giacchino; his score for Society of the Snow is absolutely beautiful and memorable, and it'll be in your head for days afterward.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #28 out of 72

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, The Creator, Rustin, May December

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

6. Animated Features

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

The Gold-laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain (2018)

Ridham Janve's The Gold-laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain (सोना ढ्वांदी भेड ते सुच्चा पहाड़) is slow and contemplative and has some breathtaking photography. Its slowness began to wear on me after a while, though, and as the film headed toward its conclusion (the revenge of the god!) I sort of started to drift into sleep.

Arrebato (Rapture) (1979)

Iván Zuleta's Arrebato is surreal and weird and very sexy. I’m not sure I really get what was happening. Vampires… vampiric cinema… heroin… honestly I don’t know. But I was into it. 

Also Eusebio Poncela is even sexier in this than he is in Law of Desire and Matador. In many ways, Arrebato actually feels like it's in the Almódovar universe. Cecilia Roth is gorgeous and young and hot in this, and the vampire filmmaker weirdo is played by Will More, who was also in Dark Habits.

Arrebato was released in Spain in 1979 and only released in the U.S. in October 1982. I am not really sure why this was on my radar to watch, but Criterion is kicking it off the channel at the end of the month, so I prioritized it. I'm glad I did.

Oscar Nominations 2023: 2 of 9

These four films each received 5 nominations. All four are nominated for Best Picture:

Anatomie d'une Chute (Anatomy of a Fall)

5 nominations

• Picture
• Director: Justine Triet
• Actress: Sandra Hüller
• Original Screenplay: Arthur Harari & Justine Triet
  
• Film Editing: Laurent Sénechal

Director: Triet

Cast: Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Jehnny Beth, Samuel Theis, Camille Rutherford, Saadia Bentaïeb, Anne Rotger, Sophie Fillières

One of the best movies of the year and the winner of the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival (there is not generally a lot of overlap between Cannes and the Oscars). This is a troubling, unsettling film with a brilliant script and superb acting all around. The Academy did very well with their screenplay nominations this year, especially, rewarding excellent adaptations and original work. The Film Editing nomination here means that this movie's position is much higher than other films with the same number of nominations. Film Editing is a category firmly linked with Best Picture. I was surprised and truly delighted by all of the love for this film on the morning of the nominations; I don't think it will win anything, but I hope this means everyone goes to see this movie.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Original Screenplay

My rating: #6 out of 72

The Zone of Interest

5 nominations

• Picture
• Director: Jonathan Glazer
• Adapted Screenplay: Jonathan Glazer
• International Feature: United Kingdon (Solomon and Gaenor, Hedd Wyn)
• Sound

Director: Glazer

Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Imogen Kogge, Freya Kreutzkam, Ralph Herforth, Ralf Zillmann, Stephanie Petrowitz

I am a bit shocked by the intensity of affection the Academy has for Glazer's movie. This is a very difficult movie to enjoy, and it's designed to create a visceral reaction of horror and disgust. Glazer's work in general has been very off-putting to the Academy in the past, and this movie is just as troubling and horrifying as his other work, and yet here it is with five nominations. I think for me my difficulty with Glazer's movie is that everyone in it is so reprehensible; and the film (understandably) isn't attempting to let us into their thought processes or working to humanize them – I wouldn't want the film to do that. But this makes for a very weird viewing experience, one where it's easy not to feel implicated by the horrors on screen, to hate the men and women who did this without feeling any personal connection or responsibility for their actions. I'm saying I wanted more from this movie, and perhaps something slightly different from what we got. In any case, Zone of Interest is a very well made film, and although I didn't connect with this movie as much as I connected with Glazer's Under the Skin, I still think every single bit of it is intriguing, and Glazer is an exacting, exciting filmmaker who deserves this recognition. Does it win anything? I think it will win International Feature as well as Sound (this is actually a film about sound), and it may also win adapted screenplay, although it's a very, very loose adaptation of the original novel.

Will win: International Feature, Sound

Could win: Adapted Screenplay

My rating: #36 out of 72

The Holdovers

5 nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man)
• Original Screenplay: David Hemingson
• Supporting Actress: Da'Vine Joy Randolph
• Film Editing: Kevin Tent (The Descendants)

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: Giamatti, Randolph, Dominic Sessa, Carrie Preston, Naheem Garcia, Brady Hepner, Ian Dolley, Jim Kaplan, Michael Provost, Andrew Garman, Stephen Thorne, Gillian Vigman, Tate Donovan

And now for something much more heartwarming. Amid the difficult movies the Academy loves this year is something easy to love and irascible yet touching. The Holdovers is a movie that is genuinely affectionate toward its characters, despite its propensity to laugh at them. It's one of the best movies of the year, and Alexander Payne's work is getting softer and more interesting, I think, as he gets older. Payne's movie boasts some beautiful performances, including the eventual winner of the Supporting Actress Oscar, and perhaps Best Actor too. I want to say one thing about Randolph's performance, which I find really excellent. I have heard people say that this is an Octavia Spencer role, a kind of stock comic foil part written for a different actress, and so Randolph's work isn't that remarkable. I find this line of thinking really stupid. In the first place, Spencer's work is excellent; she's good in absolutely everything, and she has the ability to turn mediocre writing into comic brilliance and fill it with sensitive, character rich nuances. Octavia Spencer works magic with the stock roles she is given by this industry. In the second place, Da'Vine Joy Randolph was fully robbed of an Oscar nomination in 2020 when the Academy slept on Dolemite Is My Name and refused to give it the nominations it deserved for Ruth Carter's costumes, Randolph's superb supporting work, and Eddie Murphy's excellent lead performance. I'm still irritated about this. Randolph is an excellent actress, and she's great in The Holdovers in a part that is much more interesting than a comic foil. The haters can choke.

Will win: Original Screenplay, Supporting Actress

Could win: Actor

My rating: #15 out of 72

American Fiction

5 nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Jeffrey Wright
• Adapted Screenplay: Cord Jefferson
• Supporting Actor: Sterling K. Brown
• Original Score: Laura Karpman

Director: Cord Jefferson

Cast: Wright, Brown, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, John Ortiz, Tracee Ellis Ross, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Miriam Shor, Jenn Harris

This was one of my favorite movies of the year. It's so smart, so funny, and so consistently surprising. I just absolutely loved it. Does it win anything? I think probably not, but I don't mind. We have this very very good movie as our own reward. I do want to say one thing about American Fiction that has bugged me since I saw it. I mentioned in my original response to the film that Sterling K. Brown is miscast. I stand by this. He's great in the film, don't get me wrong. In fact, I put him on my own supporting actor list for the year, and I think he's great in anything he's in. But his character should have been played by a more feminine actor. This is a gripe I have in general with casting gay characters. I wrote in my book Love Is Love Is Love that we don't actually have as much of a problem with gay male sexuality in our culture as we have with gay male femininity. Sterling Brown is very muscular and masculine throughout, and this serves to make him a much more easily digestible gay character (for audiences both gay and straight) than he'd be if he were played by a more feminine actor, but it would have reflected the issues the character has – the struggles with his mother, the difficulties feeling accepted by his brother, the issues with his kids – if he had also been struggling with the way his femininity was perceived. All of this just would have made more sense to me with someone like Noah Ricketts in the part. This, after all, amounts to a small gripe, however. American Fiction is in my top 5 films of the year.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Adapted Screenplay

My rating: #5 out of 72

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

3. Napoleon, Past Lives, Society of the Snow, Nyad

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, The Creator, Rustin, May December

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

6. Animated Features

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano