The next four movies on our list:
2 nominations
- Sound
- Visual Effects
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
2 nominations
- Sound
- Visual Effects
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
1 nomination
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
1 nomination
- Original Screenplay: Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik
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
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